ROS-induced oxidative stress is a major contributor to sperm cryoinjury

作者：Hui Shi, Qian-Ying Li, Hui Li, Haiyan Wang, Chuan-Xi Fan, Qiaoyan Dong, Bochen Pan, Zhi‐Liang Ji, Jianyuan Li · 发表于：Human Reproduction · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1093/humrep/dead250 · 被引用次数：64 · 研究领域：Sperm and Testicular Function、Reproductive Biology and Fertility、Reproductive biology and impacts on aquatic species

STUDY QUESTION: What is the mechanism behind cryoinjury in human sperm, particularly concerning the interplay between reactive oxygen species (ROS) and autophagy, and how does it subsequently affect sperm fate? SUMMARY ANSWER: The freeze-thaw operation induces oxidative stress by generating abundant ROS, which impairs sperm motility and activates autophagy, ultimately guiding the sperm toward programmed cell death such as apoptosis and necrosis, as well as triggering premature capacitation. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Both ROS-induced oxidative stress and autophagy are thought to exert an influence on the quality of frozen-thawed sperm. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: Overall, 84 semen specimens were collected from young healthy fertile males, with careful quality evaluation. The specimens were split into three groups to investigate the ROS-induced cryoinjury: normal control without any treatment, sperm treated with 0.5 mM hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) for 1 h, and sperm thawed following cryopreservation. Samples from 48 individuals underwent computer-assisted human sperm analysis (CASA) to evaluate sperm quality in response to the treatments. Semen samples from three donors were analyzed for changes in the sperm proteome after H2O2 treatment, and another set of samples from three donors were analyzed for changes following the freeze-thaw process. The other 30 samples were used for fluorescence-staining and western blotting. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: Sperm motility parame...