State Key Laboratory of Vaccines for Infectious Diseases，Xiang An Biomedicine Laboratory，State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics，National Innovation Platform for Industry-Education Integration in Vaccine Research, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Environment and Health, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China; Division of Birth Cohort Study, Fujian Provincial Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, Fujian, China.
J Hazard Mater. 2023 Oct 5;459:132292. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2023.132292. Epub 2023 Aug 14.
Evidence linking O exposure and human semen quality is limited and conflicting and the mechanism underlying the association remains unclear. Therefore, we investigated the associations between ambient O exposure and sperm quality parameters and explored the mediating role of sperm mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn) and sperm telomere length (STL) among 1068 potential sperm donors who provided 5002 repeated semen samples over approximately 90 days. We found that every 10 μg/m increase in O exposure was associated with a decrease in STL, sperm concentration, total count, total motile sperm number, and semen volume. However, O exposure was associated with increased total motility and progressive motility. The association for sperm quality parameters was stronger when exposure was measured at spermatogenesis stages I and II. For STL, the strongest association was observed when exposure was measured at spermatogenesis stage II. Additionally, we found that approximately 9% and 8% of the association between O exposure and sperm concentration and count was mediated by STL, respectively. In summary, our findings suggest that O pollution may affect sperm telomere length, eventually leading to reduced semen quality.
关于臭氧暴露与人类精液质量之间关联的证据有限且相互矛盾，其潜在的作用机制仍不清楚。因此，我们调查了 1068 名潜在的精子捐赠者在大约 90 天内提供的 5002 份重复精液样本中，环境臭氧暴露与精子质量参数之间的关联，并探讨了精子线粒体 DNA 拷贝数（mtDNAcn）和精子端粒长度（STL）在其中的中介作用。我们发现，臭氧暴露每增加 10μg/m，STL、精子浓度、总数、总活力精子数和精液量就会减少。然而，臭氧暴露与总活力和前向运动活力增加有关。当在精子发生阶段 I 和 II 测量暴露时，精子质量参数的相关性更强。对于 STL，在精子发生阶段 II 测量暴露时观察到最强的关联。此外，我们发现，臭氧暴露与精子浓度和计数之间的关联中，大约有 9%和 8%分别是通过 STL 介导的。总之，我们的研究结果表明，臭氧污染可能会影响精子端粒长度，最终导致精液质量下降。
