The transcriptome of ejaculates used for successful/failed in vitro-fertilization

We investigated the transcriptome obtained from microarray analysis of human ejaculates used in an IVF programme. The gene expression profiles are to be correlated with successful/failed induction of oocyte fertilisation and/or pregnancy. Since human ejaculates are often contaminated with so-called 'round cells' (mostly somatic cells such as leukocytes and macrophages, but also immature germ cells), a considerable part of the gene expression pertains not to spermatozoa. Rigorous statistical analysis of the data is to be used to extract genes that correlate with fertilization success. A set of 25 human ejaculates (12 pregnancy; 3 biochemical pregnancy; 7 oocyte fertilization; 3 no oocyte fertilization) from an IVF procedure were used for RNA extraction and microarray hybridization.