Faculty of Dentistry, MAHSA University, Shah Alam 42610, Malaysia.
Faculty of Medicine, Bioscience and Nursing, MAHSA University, Shah Alam 42610, Malaysia.
Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Sep 17;22(18):10043. doi: 10.3390/ijms221810043.
Inflammation is among the core causatives of male infertility. Despite male infertility being a serious global issue, "bits and pieces" of its complex etiopathology still remain missing. During inflammation, levels of proinflammatory mediators in the male reproductive tract are greater than usual. According to epidemiological research, in numerous cases of male infertility, patients suffer from acute or chronic inflammation of the genitourinary tract which typically occurs without symptoms. Inflammatory responses in the male genital system are inextricably linked to oxidative stress (OS). OS is detrimental to male fertility parameters as it causes oxidative damage to reproductive cells and intracellular components. Multifarious male infertility causative factors pave the way for impairing male reproductive functions via the common mechanisms of OS and inflammation, both of which are interlinked pathophysiological processes, and the occurrence of any one of them induces the other. Both processes may be simultaneously found in the pathogenesis of male infertility. Thus, the present article aims to explain the role of inflammation and OS in male infertility in detail, as well as to show the mechanistic pathways that link causative factors of male reproductive tract inflammation, OS induction, and oxidant-sensitive cellular cascades leading to male infertility.
炎症是男性不育的核心病因之一。尽管男性不育是一个严重的全球性问题，但它复杂的发病机制仍有“一些缺失环节”。在炎症过程中，男性生殖道内的促炎介质水平高于正常水平。根据流行病学研究，在许多男性不育病例中，患者患有泌尿生殖道的急性或慢性炎症，而这种炎症通常没有症状。男性生殖系统的炎症反应与氧化应激（OS）密切相关。OS 对男性生育参数有害，因为它会对生殖细胞和细胞内成分造成氧化损伤。多种男性不育的致病因素通过 OS 和炎症的共同机制导致男性生殖功能受损，这两种机制是相互关联的病理生理过程，其中任何一种的发生都会诱发另一种。这两个过程可能同时存在于男性不育的发病机制中。因此，本文旨在详细解释炎症和 OS 在男性不育中的作用，并展示将男性生殖道炎症的致病因素、OS 诱导以及导致男性不育的氧化剂敏感细胞级联联系起来的机制途径。
