Tang B, Shang X, Qi H, Li J, Ma B, An G, Zhang Q
School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China.
Department of Andrology, Jinling Hospital, Nanjing, China.
Andrologia. 2017 Nov;49(9). doi: 10.1111/and.12744. Epub 2017 Jan 26.
The mechanism of asthenozoospermia remains unclear. The knowledge of the metabolism of fatty acids in seminal plasma is important and meaningful for the pathological study of asthenozoospermia. We present an optimised assay of extraction and derivatisation followed by GC/MS to analyse metabolites, especially fatty acids, in seminal plasma from healthy and asthenozoospermic men. Eighty-nine peaks including 17 kinds of fatty acids were analysed and identified in the chromatogram. The GC/MS data were analysed using t test, fold change and partial least squares discriminant analysis to explore the potential biomarkers of asthenozoospermia. Seven metabolites in asthenozoospermic group were found to be significantly different from those in the normal group (with p < .05, fold change >1.2 and variable importance for projection >1). Of which, high levels of oleic acid and palmitic acid in seminal plasma from asthenozoospermic men may indicate a membrane metabolism disorder in spermatozoa and the lack of valine in the asthenozoospermic group may contribute to poor sperm motility. The results may facilitate the understanding of the role of fatty acids and amino acids in asthenozoospermia and provide solid foundation for further pathological study of asthenozoospermia.
弱精子症的发病机制尚不清楚。了解精浆中脂肪酸的代谢情况对弱精子症的病理研究具有重要意义。我们提出了一种优化的提取和衍生化方法，随后采用气相色谱/质谱联用技术（GC/MS）分析健康男性和弱精子症男性精浆中的代谢产物，尤其是脂肪酸。在色谱图中分析并鉴定出89个峰，包括17种脂肪酸。使用t检验、倍数变化和偏最小二乘判别分析对GC/MS数据进行分析，以探索弱精子症的潜在生物标志物。发现弱精子症组中的7种代谢产物与正常组有显著差异（p < 0.05，倍数变化>1.2，投影变量重要性>1）。其中，弱精子症男性精浆中油酸和棕榈酸水平较高可能表明精子膜代谢紊乱，而弱精子症组中缬氨酸缺乏可能导致精子活力低下。这些结果可能有助于理解脂肪酸和氨基酸在弱精子症中的作用，并为弱精子症的进一步病理研究提供坚实基础。
