The long-term excessive alcohol consumption on sperm quality and the impact of germ cell apoptosis

Abstract

Objective To investigate the long-term excessive drinking semen nitric oxide (NO) content in their sperm quality and spermatogenic cell apoptosis and infertility. Methods Nitrate reductase method was used to specific reduce the NO metabolites nitrate (NO3-) to nitrite (NO2-), which was used on behalf of the total NO level. Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT) and mediated nick end labeling (TUNEL) method and binocular optical microscope were used to detect and observe the rate of apoptosis of spermatogenic cells and the morphological structure. The SQA-V sperm quality automatic analyzer was used to measure sperm quality. Results In not drinking semen fertility group, NO content was (54.81±11.45)μmol / L, the rate of spermatogenic cell apoptosis was (4.52±1.23)%, sperm motility was (80.24±0.17)%, energy a+b (78.32±0.12)%, deformity rate (5.30±0.13)%, and long-term excessive alcohol infertility C group was [(128.83±22.73)μmol/L,(17.34±2.53)%,(51.18±0.58)%,(21.45±0.26)%,(21.12±3.24)%] respectively. Compared to a very significant difference (t＝10.04,17.38,6.69,15.59,17.02,P＜0.01) . In long-term excessive drinking group, the levels of NO and spermatogenesis cell apoptosis rate was significantly positive correlated (r＝0.93,P＜0.01).Apoptosis of spermatogenic cell nucleus chromatin was condensed in the formation of crescent-shaped perinuclear, nuclear was cleavaged to form apoptotic bodies. Conclusions In the long-term excessive drinking semen, NO content and spermatogenic cell apoptosis rate was increased, the sperm had poor quality. The results showed that the long-term excessive drinking can cause germ cell apoptosis in male infertility and promote the body to overproduce NO, whichmay be one of the reasons for male infertility. Key words: Alcohol drinking/AE; Alcoholism; Apoptosis; Spermatozoa/DE; Spermatids/DE; Semen/ME; Nitric oxide/ME