The study of male infertility after spinal cord injury (SCI) has enhanced the understanding of seminal plasma (SP) as an important regulator of spermatozoa function. However, the most important factors leading to the diminished sperm motility and viability observed in semen of men with SCI remained unknown. Thus, to explore SP related molecular mechanisms underlying infertility after SCI we used mass spectrometry-based quantitative proteomics to compare SP retrieved from SCI patients to normal controls. As a result, we present an in-depth characterization of the human SP proteome, identifying ~2,800 unique proteins, and describe, in detail, the differential proteome observed in SCI. Our analysis demonstrates that a hyper-activation of the immune system may influence some seminal processes, which probably are not triggered by microbial infection. Moreover, we show evidence of an important prostate gland functional failure, i.e. diminished abundance of metabolic enzymes related to ATP turnover, secreted via prostasomes. Further we identify the main outcome related to this fact and that it is intrinsically linked to the low sperm motility in SCI. Together, our data suggest the molecular pathways hindering fertility in SCI and shed new light on other causes of male infertility.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 January 2016.
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