Reactive oxygen species and male reproductive hormones.
File(s)
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Reports of the increasing incidence of male infertility paired with decreasing semen quality have triggered studies on the effects of lifestyle and environmental factors on the male reproductive potential. There are numerous exogenous and endogenous factors that are able to induce excessive production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) beyond that of cellular antioxidant capacity, thus causing oxidative stress. In turn, oxidative stress negatively affects male reproductive functions and may induce infertility either directly or indirectly by affecting the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis and/or disrupting its crosstalk with other hormonal axes. This review discusses the important exogenous and endogenous factors leading to the generation of ROS in different parts of the male reproductive tract. It also highlights the negative impact of oxidative stress on the regulation and cross-talk between the reproductive hormones. It further describes the mechanism of ROS-induced derangement of male reproductive hormonal profiles that could ultimately lead to male infertility. An understanding of the disruptive effects of ROS on male reproductive hormones would encourage further investigations directed towards the prevention of ROS-mediated hormonal imbalances, which in turn could help in the management of male infertility.
Date Issued
2018-09-11
Date Acceptance
2018-08-30
Citation
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology, 2018, 16 (1), pp.1-14
ISSN
1477-7827
Publisher
BMC
Start Page
1
End Page
14
Journal / Book Title
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology
Volume
16
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver
(http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver
(http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30205828
PII: 10.1186/s12958-018-0406-2
Subjects
Antioxidants
Environmental Exposure
Humans
Hypothalamus
Infertility, Male
Male
Oxidative Stress
Pituitary Gland
Reactive Oxygen Species
Reproduction
Testosterone
Antioxidants
Hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis
Male infertility
Oxidative stress
Reactive oxygen species
Testosterone
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Date Publish Online
2018-09-11