Seminal plasma and CD4+ T‑cell cytokine profiles in the in vitro fertilization success

Background: abnormal female immune response is one of the potential causes of unexplained infertility (ui). seminal plasma (sp) is an important regulator of female immune responses during pregnancy. this study investigated a sp effect on the expression of cd4+ t-cell-related cytokines in a group of ui woman candidates for in vitro fertilization (ivf) and healthy fertile women. materials and methods: this was a semi-experimental study that performed on 20 ui couples (ten unsuccessful and ten successful ivf outcomes) and 10 fertile couples as the healthy group. cd4+ t-cells were separated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of women by magnetic-activated cell sorting technique and incubated with (stimulated condition) or without (unstimulated condition) sp of their husbands. after incubation, real-time polymerase chain reaction method was used to investigate interleukin (il)-23, il-17, il-4, il-10, transforming growth factor (tgf)-ß, and interferon (ifn)-? gene expression. mann–whitney u-test, kruskal–wallis test, and wilcoxon signed-rank test were used for statistical analysis. results: baseline tcd4+ mrna levels of il-23 (p = 0.03) and tgf-ß (p = 0.01) were different between healthy and infertile groups. however, il-17, il-4, ifn-?, and il-10 were expressed similarly regardless of fertility status. comparing mrna expression before and after sp exposure, our results have shown that relative expression of il-23 significantly increased in successful (p = 0.04) and unsuccessful ivf groups (p = 0.01), whereas il-10 expression increased only in the ivf failure group (p = 0.01). conclusion: sp can make a positive effect on ivf outcome through alteration in cd4 + t-cell-related cytokines expression, especially il-10 and il-23.