Journal of Reproduction & Infertility

Journal of Reproduction & Infertility

Metabolomics of Male Infertility: A New Tool for Diagnostic Tests

Authors
Bahareh Mehrparavar 1
Arash Minai-Tehrani 2
Babak Arjmand 3
Kambiz Gilany 4
1 Reproductive Biotechnology Research Center, Avicenna Research Institute, ACECR, Tehran, Iran
2 Nanobiotechnology Research Center, Avicenna Research Institute, ACECR, Tehran, Iran
3 Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine Research Center, Endocrinology and Metabolism Molecular Cellular Sciences Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Integrative Oncology Department, Breast Cancer Resear
4 Reproductive Biotechnology Research Center, Avicenna Research Institute, ACECR, Tehran, Iran; Integrative Oncology Department, Breast Cancer Research Center, Motamed Cancer Institute, ACECR, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Infertility is a major health issue worldwide. Males and females contribute equally to this problem. Diagnostic semen analysis fails to identify 50% of male infertility disorders. In this regard, metabolomics as a new field of omics has been suggested to have the potential of solving and diagnosis of the male infertility problems. Metabolome has a history of around 20 years. However, there are only limited metabolomics studies carried out regarding male infertility. In this review, the current metabolomics researches that have been done in infertile men were reviewed. Based on our own results, using human seminal plasma for metabolomics studies is highly recommended to find potential biomarkers and developing diagnosis tests for detection of main deficiencies in infertile men.
Keywords
Biomarkers
Human seminal plasma
Male infertility
metabolomics
  1. Hamada AJ, Montgomery B, Agarwal A. Male infertility: a critical review of pharmacologic management. Expert Opin Pharmacother. 2012;13(17):2511-31.
  2. Kovac JR, Pastuszak AW, Lamb DJ. The use of genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics in identifying biomarkers of male infertility. Fertil Steril. 2013;99(4):998-1007.
  3. Minai‐Tehrani A, Jafarzadeh N, Gilany K. Metabolomics: a state‐of‐the‐art technology for better understanding of male infertility. Andrologia. 2016;48(6):609-16.
  4. WHO. WHO laboratory manual for the examination and processing of human semen. 5th ed. Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2010. 287 p.
  5. Strimbu K, Tavel JA. What are biomarkers? Curr Opin HIV AIDS. 2010;5(6):463-6.
  6. Fiehn O. Metabolomics--the link between genotypes and phenotypes. Plant Mol Biol. 2002;48(1-2):155-71.
  7. Goodacre R. Metabolomics of a superorganism. J Nutr. 2007;137(1 Suppl):259S-66S.
  8. Sue T, Obolonkin V, Griffiths H, Villas-Boas SG. An exometabolomics approach to monitoring microbial contamination in microalgal fermentation processes by using metabolic footprint analysis. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2011;77(21):7605-10.
  9. Hamamah S, Seguin F, Barthelemy C, Akoka S, Le Pape A, Lansac J, et al. 1H nuclear magnetic resonance studies of seminal plasma from fertile and infertile men. J Reprod Fertil. 1993;97(1):51-5.
  10. Gilany K, Pouracil RS, Sadeghi MR. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy: a potential technique for noninvasive detection of spermatogenesis. Avicenna J Med Biotechnol. 2014;6(1):47-52.
  11. da Silva BF, Del Giudice PT, Spaine DM, Gozzo FC, Turco EL, Bertolla RP. Metabolomics of male infertility: characterization of seminal plasma lipid fingerprints in men with spinal cord injury. Fertil Steril. 2011;96(3):S233.
  12. Jayaraman V, Ghosh S, Sengupta A, Srivastava S, Sonawat HM, Narayan PK. Identification of biochemical differences between different forms of male infertility by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. J Assist Reprod Genet. 2014;31(9):1195-204.
  13. Gilany K, Moazeni-Pourasil RS, Jafarzadeh N, Savadi-Shiraz E. Metabolomics fingerprinting of the human seminal plasma of asthenozoospermic patients. Mol Reprod Dev. 2014;81(1):84-6.
  14. Zhang X, Diao R, Zhu X, Li Z, Cai Z. Metabolic characterization of asthenozoospermia using nontargeted seminal plasma metabolomics. Clin Chim Acta. 2015;450:254-61.
  15. Chen X, Hu C, Dai J, Chen L. Metabolomics analysis of seminal plasma in infertile males with kidney-yang deficiency: a preliminary study. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2015;2015:892930.
  16. Gilany K, Mani-Varnosfaderani A, Minai-Tehrani A, Mirzajani F, Ghassempour A, Sadeghi MR, et al. Untargeted metabolomic profiling of seminal plasma of non-obstructive azoospermia men: a non-invasive detection of spermatogenesis. Biomed Chromatogr. 2017;31(8):e3931.
  17. Gilany K, Jafarzadeh N, Mani-Varnosfaderani A, Minai-Tehrani A, Sadeghi MR, Darbandi M, et al. Metabolic fingerprinting of seminal plasma from Non-obstructive azoospermia patients: positive versus negative sperm retrieval. J Reprod Infertil. 2018;19(2):109-14.
  18. Zhang Z, Zhang Y, Liu C, Zhao M, Yang Y, Wu H, et al. Serum metabolomic profiling identifies characterization of non-obstructive azoospermic men. Int J Mol Sci. 2017;18(2): pii: E238.
  19. Deepinder F, Chowdary HT, Agarwal A. Role of metabolomic analysis of biomarkers in the management of male infertility. Expert Rev Mol Diagn. 2007;7(4):351-8.
  20. Sharma RK, Agarwal A. Role of reactive oxygen species in male infertility. Urology. 1996;48(6):835-50.
  21. Jafarzadeh N, Mani-Varnosfaderani A, Minai-Tehrani A, Savadi-Shiraz E, Sadeghi MR, Gilany K. Metabolomics fingerprinting of seminal plasma from unexplained infertile men: a need for novel diagnostic biomarkers. Mol Reprod Dev. 2015;82(3):150.
  22. Qiao S, Wu W, Chen M, Tang Q, Xia Y, Jia W, et al. Seminal plasma metabolomics approach for the diagnosis of unexplained male infertility. PloS One. 2017;12(8):e0181115.
  23. Zhang J, Huang Z, Chen M, Xia Y, Martin FL, Hang W, et al. Urinary metabolome identifies signatures of oligozoospermic infertile men. Fertil Steril. 2014;102(1):44-53.e12.
  24. Zhang J, Mu X, Xia Y, Martin FL, Hang W, Liu L, et al. Metabolomic analysis reveals a unique urinary pattern in normozoospermic infertile men. J Proteome Res. 2014;13(6):3088-99.
  25. Zhou X, Wang Y, Yun Y, Xia Z, Lu H, Luo J, et al. A potential tool for diagnosis of male infertility: Plasma metabolomics based on GC-MS. Talanta. 2016;147:82-9.
  26. Zheng P, Wang Y, Lu H, Zhou X, Tang T, Fan R, et al. Plasma metabolomics analysis based on GC-MS in infertile males with Kidney-Yang deficiency syndrome. Evid Based Complement Alternate Med. 2017;2017:6270195.
  27. Paiva C, Amaral A, Rodriguez M, Canyellas N, Correig X, Ballescà JL, et al. Identification of endogenous metabolites in human sperm cells using proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) spectroscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Andrology. 2015;3(3):496-505.
  28. Gilany K, Minai-Tehrani A, Savadi-Shiraz E, Rezadoost H, Lakpour N. Exploring the human seminal plasma proteome: an unexplored gold mine of biomarker for male infertility and male reproduction disorder. J Reprod Infertil. 2015;16(2):61-71.
  29. Wishart DS, Jewison T, Guo AC, Wilson M, Knox C, Liu Y, et al. HMDB 3.0--the human metabolome database in 2013. Nucleic Acids Res. 2013;41(Database issue):D801-7.
Journal of Reproduction & Infertility
Volume 20, Issue 2
Spring 2019
Pages 64-69