Abstract
The reduction of sperm motility and count, or oligoasthenozoospermia, is one of the major causes of reduced fertility or infertility in men. Lipid composition of spermatozoa is important in determining their functional characteristics, in particular on motility, acrosomal exocytosis or fusogenic properties of the sperm. Here we investigated the levels of semen lipids in 11 infertile patients with severe oligoasthenozoospermia and 9 normozoospermic subjects with normal motility values. Sperm polar and neutral lipids were analyzed by thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and matrix-assisted laser desorption and ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/MS). Semen of patients with oligoasthenozoospermia showed a reduction of the degree of fatty acid unsaturation in the phospholipids chains that might affect the membrane fluidity. Furthermore, a significant higher cholesterol sulfate/seminolipid ratio was found in semen of oligoasthenozoospermic patients than in subjects with normal motility values, suggesting a critical role of sulfolipids in semen quality. The results may facilitate the understanding of the role of lipids on male fertility and offer interesting perspectives to find innovative treatments for oligoasthenozoospermia.
Highlights
The knowledge of the physiology of the human reproduction has advanced to a marked degree thanks to several studies on semen and related problems, the assessment of male infertility is impaired by limited diagnostic and therapeutic tools and its cause is still unknown.The semen consists of fluid components, i.e., the seminal fluid, in which there are the cellular constituents, i.e., the spermatozoa
The purpose of this study is an investigation of the lipid composition of human semen from patients with severe oligoasthenozoospermia in order to better elucidate the role of lipids on male fertility
Total lipids were extracted from whole semen (S) as well as from related spermatozoa (Sz) and seminal plasma (Sp) obtained from a man with normozoospermia; the total lipids were analyzed by thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and MALDI-TOF/MS
Summary
The semen consists of fluid components, i.e., the seminal fluid, in which there are the cellular constituents, i.e., the spermatozoa. The seminal fluid is produced in different proportion by several glands: the prostate, the seminal vesicles and the bulbourethral glands (Mann and Lutwak-Mann, 1981). Spermatozoa, produced by testes, represent only a small portion of the whole semen, from 1 to 5% of the total volume (Mortimer, 1994). The unusual molecular composition and the architecture of the sperm plasma membrane play an important role in determining the specific sperm properties and functions. Despite some variations between different mammalian species, in general the sperm plasma membrane shares a unique lipid composition: (1) an unusually low content of cholesterol (Chol); (2) an high proportion
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