Gheliji Tahereh, Haidari Mohammad Hosain, Novin Marefat Ghaffari, Mofarahe Zahra Shams, Kazemi Mahsa, Gachkar Latif, Raee Pourya, Karimi Bahareh, Nazarian Hamid
Department of Biology and Anatomical Sciences, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Clin Exp Reprod Med. 2025 Sep;52(3):275-282. doi: 10.5653/cerm.2024.07479. Epub 2025 Mar 6.
The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) treatment on the autophagy process and sperm parameters in individuals with asthenoteratozoospermia.
Twenty semen samples from patients diagnosed with asthenoteratozoospermia were divided into control and treatment groups. Subsequently, 2 ng/mL of GM-CSF was added to the treatment group samples. All samples were then incubated for 1 hour. Post-incubation, the protein levels of light chain 3 II (LC3-II)/LC3-I and autophagy related 7 (Atg7), which are well-known autophagy markers, along with sperm motility, viability, and sperm DNA fragmentation, were analyzed in both study groups.
Our study demonstrated significant increases in LC3-II/LC3-I and Atg7 levels, as well as in sperm motility, in the GM-CSF group compared to the control group (p<0.0001). Furthermore, GM-CSF treatment significantly reduced necrotic cell death in the GM-CSF group relative to the control group (p<0.01). There were no significant differences between the groups in terms of sperm viability and DNA fragmentation (p>0.05).
These results revealed that GM-CSF has the potential to significantly induce autophagy in sperm and enhance sperm motility in patients with asthenoteratozoospermia, without adversely affecting sperm viability and DNA integrity. These findings suggest that modifying autophagy with physiological and safe components like GM-CSF may become a promising therapeutic strategy for treating male infertility in the near future.
本研究旨在探讨粒细胞-巨噬细胞集落刺激因子（GM-CSF）治疗对弱畸精子症患者自噬过程及精子参数的影响。
将20例被诊断为弱畸精子症患者的精液样本分为对照组和治疗组。随后，向治疗组样本中添加2 ng/mL的GM-CSF。然后将所有样本孵育1小时。孵育后，在两个研究组中分析了众所周知的自噬标志物轻链3 II（LC3-II）/LC3-I和自噬相关蛋白7（Atg7）的蛋白水平，以及精子活力、存活率和精子DNA碎片率。
我们的研究表明，与对照组相比，GM-CSF组的LC3-II/LC3-I和Atg7水平以及精子活力显著增加（p<0.0001）。此外，与对照组相比，GM-CSF治疗显著降低了GM-CSF组的坏死性细胞死亡（p<0.01）。两组在精子存活率和DNA碎片率方面无显著差异（p>0.05）。
这些结果表明，GM-CSF有潜力显著诱导弱畸精子症患者精子的自噬并增强精子活力，而不会对精子存活率和DNA完整性产生不利影响。这些发现表明，用GM-CSF等生理安全成分调节自噬可能在不久的将来成为治疗男性不育症的一种有前景的治疗策略。
