Microbiota of semen samples with asthenozoospermia: analysis of real-time PCR data

Abstract

This study was conducted to compare the semen microbial composition using real-time PCR in patients with asthenozoospermia and normozoospermia. The semen microbial composition was assessed by real-time PCR (Androflor kit, DNA-Technology, Russia) in 242 patients with asthenozoospermia (AS) and 377 patients with normozoospermia (NS). The microbial DNA (as total bacterial load, TBL) in quantity of at least 103 GE/ml was detected in 268 (71.1 %) of 377 semen samples with NS and 185 (76.4 %) of 242 semen samples with AS. According to cluster analysis, the microbiota of positive samples was represented by one of eight stable microbial clusters with predominance of a certain group of bacteria. In asthenozoospermia a cluster dominated by Lactobacillus spp. was determined significantly more often, and among the identified individual groups of bacteria Bacteroides spp. / Porphyromonas spp. / Prevotella spp., Megasphaera spp. / Veillonella spp. / Dialister spp., and Lactobacillus spp. were detected significantly more often in comparison with normozoospermia.