Department of Genetics and Reproductive Biotechnologies, Central European Institute of Technology, Veterinary Research Institute, Brno, Czech Republic.
Environ Mol Mutagen. 2022 Feb;63(2):76-83. doi: 10.1002/em.22474.
Human populations living in urban industrial regions of developed countries are exposed to high levels of environmental pollutants. The reproductive consequences of the exposure to air pollution can be monitored through semen analysis and molecular methods. In this study, we tested the possible impact of seasonal changes in the level of air pollution on the semen quality and sperm DNA methylation of 24 men living and working in the industrial agglomeration of Ostrava (Czech Republic). The study participants were healthy non-smokers. The study group was homogeneous regarding their profession, moderate alcohol consumption, no drug abuse and no additional exposure to chemical toxicants. We performed targeted methylation next generation sequencing (NGS) using Agilent SureSelect Human Methyl-Seq and Illumina NextSeq 500 platform to analyze semen samples collected repeatedly from the same men following the season of high (winter) and low (summer) air pollution exposure. We did not detect any adverse effects of the increased exposure on the semen quality; neither we found any difference in average sperm DNA methylation between the two sampling periods. Our search for differentially methylated CpG sites did not reveal any specific CpG methylation change. Our data indicate that the seasonal changes in the level of the air pollution probably do not have any substantial effect on sperm DNA methylation of men living in the highly polluted industrial agglomeration for a long period of time.
居住在发达国家城市工业区的人群会接触到高水平的环境污染物。通过精液分析和分子方法可以监测到暴露于空气污染的生殖后果。在这项研究中，我们测试了空气污染水平季节性变化对 24 名居住和工作在奥斯特拉发（捷克共和国）工业聚集区的男性的精液质量和精子 DNA 甲基化的可能影响。研究参与者是健康的不吸烟者。研究组在职业、适度饮酒、无药物滥用和无其他化学毒物接触方面是同质的。我们使用 Agilent SureSelect Human Methyl-Seq 和 Illumina NextSeq 500 平台进行靶向甲基化下一代测序（NGS），分析了在高（冬季）和低（夏季）空气污染暴露季节从同一男性重复采集的精液样本。我们没有发现增加的暴露对精液质量有任何不良影响；我们也没有发现两个采样期之间平均精子 DNA 甲基化有任何差异。我们对差异甲基化 CpG 位点的搜索没有发现任何特定的 CpG 甲基化变化。我们的数据表明，在长时间生活在高度污染的工业聚集区的男性中，空气污染水平的季节性变化可能对精子 DNA 甲基化没有实质性影响。
