Medical Parasitology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt.
Pathology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt.
Exp Parasitol. 2023 Aug;251:108571. doi: 10.1016/j.exppara.2023.108571. Epub 2023 Jun 26.
Infertility is a prevalent condition affecting approximately 70 million people worldwide and male factor contributes to about fifty percent of the issues. Studies on infectious agents as a possible cause of infertility has become prominent in the past decade. Toxoplasma gondii has emerged as a prime candidate as it has been found in the reproductive organs and semen of males of many animal species and humans. The aim of this study is to assess the effect of latent toxoplasmosis on experimental rat fertility. Ninety Toxoplasma infected rat were used as the experimental group besides, thirty control naïve ones. Both groups were observed clinically. Weekly assessment of fertility indices starting from the 7th week post infection till the 12th week were done by recording rat body weight, weight of testes, semen analysis and histo-morphometric analysis of the testes. Toxoplasma infected rats exhibited significant gradual loss of body weight and the absolute weight of the testes. The sperm characteristic parameters including percentage of motile sperm, percentage of viable sperm and sperm concentration in Toxoplasma infected rats showed highly significant decrease throughout the observation period in comparison to the control group with recording highly significant increase in the percentage of abnormal sperm forms. Pathological insults in tests of the infected rat group were denoted. Our findings demonstrated that Toxoplasma gondii is accused for affecting male rat main reproductive parameters and is implicated in the male reproductive disorders.
不孕是一种全球范围内普遍存在的病症，影响约 7000 万人，其中男性因素约占一半。过去十年中，研究传染病原体是否可能是不孕的原因已成为一个突出的问题。刚地弓形虫作为一个主要候选病原体出现，因为它已在许多动物物种和人类的生殖器官和精液中被发现。本研究旨在评估潜伏性弓形体病对实验大鼠生育能力的影响。90 只感染弓形虫的大鼠被用作实验组，另外 30 只未感染的对照组大鼠。两组均进行临床观察。从感染后第 7 周到第 12 周，每周评估生育指数，记录大鼠体重、睾丸重量、精液分析和睾丸组织形态计量学分析。感染弓形虫的大鼠体重明显逐渐下降，睾丸的绝对重量也下降。感染弓形虫的大鼠的精子特征参数，包括精子活力、精子存活率和精子浓度，在整个观察期间均显著下降，与对照组相比，异常精子形态的百分比显著增加。感染组大鼠的睾丸出现了病理损伤。我们的研究结果表明，刚地弓形虫会影响雄性大鼠的主要生殖参数，并可能导致男性生殖系统紊乱。
