The complex microbiome from native semen to embryo culture environment in human in vitro fertilization procedure

Table 3 The counts (log¹⁰ plasmid gene copies/ml sperm; mean ± SD) of total bacteria and three common groups of bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae, Corynebacterium sp. and Staphylococcus sp., in study samples as revealed by qPCR

Bacterial groups	Semen	Washed sperm	Incubated sperm	IVF culture media	p
Total bacteria	5.79 ± 0.44^a,b,c	5.17 ± 0.53^a	4.92 ± 0.36^b	4.85 ± 0.28^c	^a,b,c p < 0.001
Enterobacteriaceae	4.67 ± 0.89^a,b	3.92 ± 0.26^a,c,d	3.43 ± 0.31^b,d	3.95 ± 0.56^c	^a p < 0.005 ^b,c p < 0.001 ^d p = 0.008
Corynebacterium sp.	4.51 ± 0.67^a,b,c	3.78 ± 1.01^a	4.04 ± 0.35^b	3.36 ± 0.49^c	^a,b,c p < 0.001
Staphylococcus sp.	3.55 ± 0.33	0	0	2.58	NS

^a,b,c,d Indicate the compared pairs of values that resulted in statistically significant differences (p value less than 0.05, given in the last column)

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