Background: Human life without sperm is not possible. Therefore, it is alarming that the
fertilizing ability of human spermatozoa is continuously decreasing. The reasons for that are widely
unknown, but there is hope that metabolomics-based investigations may be able to contribute to
overcoming this problem. This review summarizes the attempts made so far. Methods: We will
discuss liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS), gas chromatography (GC), infrared (IR)
and Raman as well as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Almost all available studies
apply one of these methods. Results: Depending on the methodology used, different compounds
can be detected, which is (in combination with sophisticated methods of bioinformatics) helpful
to estimate the state of the sperm. Often, but not in all cases, there is a correlation with clinical
parameters such as the sperm mobility. Conclusions: LC-MS detects the highest number of metabolites and can be considered as the method of choice. Unfortunately, the reproducibility of some
studies is poor, and, thus, further improvements of the study designs are needed to overcome this
problem. Additionally, a stronger focus on the biochemical consequences of the altered metabolite
concentrations is also required
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:88458 |
| Date | 05 December 2023 |
| Creators | Blaurock, Janet, Baumann, Sven, Grunewald, Sonja, Schiller, Jürgen, M. Engel, Kathrin |
| Publisher | MDPI |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 1422-0067, 10.3390/ijms23169031 |
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