Department of Clinical Laboratory, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310016, Zhejiang, People's Republic of China.
Department of Clinical Laboratory, The 117th Hospital of PLA, Hangzhou, 310016, Zhejiang, People's Republic of China.
Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis. 2018 Oct;37(10):1957-1963. doi: 10.1007/s10096-018-3331-6. Epub 2018 Jul 26.
Whether Ureaplasma spp. are a causative agent of male infertility remains controversial. Previous studies concerning Ureaplasma spp. and male infertility have been confined to the species level of Ureaplasma. Currently, an expanded multilocus sequence typing (eMLST) scheme has been established with high discriminatory power. The aim of this study was to use eMLST to explore the distribution of Ureaplasma spp. and to analyze its role in oligozoospermia and semen quality. A total of 480 semen samples were obtained from Chinese infertile males. The associations between Ureaplasma spp. with oligozoospermia and semen characteristics were further evaluated. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that 102 Ureaplasma spp. could be separated into two clusters and seven sub-groups. Within cluster I (U. parvum), eST16 and eST41 were the most frequent clones. For cluster II (U. urealyticum), eST82 and eST147 were the most prevalent clones. Sub-groups A and C belonging to cluster I and sub-group 1 belonging to cluster II showed an association with oligozoospermia, in contrast with the Ureaplasma spp. negative group (P < 0.05). Compared with the negative group, semen motility decreased in sub-group 2, especially for non-progressive motility (P < 0.05). These results indicated that sub-groups A and C belonging to cluster I (U. parvum) and sub-group 1 belonging to cluster II (U. urealyticum) were shown to be associated with oligozoospermia. Sub-group 2 belonging to cluster II may have the ability to impair semen motility, especially for non-progressive motility.
解脲脲原体是否是男性不育的致病因素仍存在争议。之前关于解脲脲原体和男性不育的研究仅限于解脲脲原体的种属水平。目前，已经建立了一种具有高区分能力的扩展多位点序列分型（eMLST）方案。本研究旨在使用 eMLST 来探讨解脲脲原体的分布，并分析其在少精子症和精液质量中的作用。共从中国不育男性中获得 480 份精液样本。进一步评估了解脲脲原体与少精子症和精液特征的相关性。系统发育分析显示，102 株解脲脲原体可分为两个聚类和七个亚群。在聚类 I（U. parvum）中，eST16 和 eST41 是最常见的克隆。对于聚类 II（U. urealyticum），eST82 和 eST147 是最常见的克隆。聚类 I 的亚群 A 和 C 和聚类 II 的亚群 1 与少精子症相关，而与解脲脲原体阴性组相比（P < 0.05）。与阴性组相比，亚群 2 的精液活力下降，特别是非前向运动的活力（P < 0.05）。这些结果表明，聚类 I 的亚群 A 和 C（U. parvum）和聚类 II 的亚群 1（U. urealyticum）与少精子症相关。聚类 II 的亚群 2 可能具有损害精液活力的能力，特别是对非前向运动的活力。
