Oxidation reduction potential: a new biomarker of male infertility

Abstract

Oxidative stress is considered a major etiology for male infertility, more specifically idiopathic infertility. The causes of seminal oxidative stress can be intrinsic, such as varicocele or due to the presence of active leukocytes and immature germ cells. reported external causes are smoking, alcohol or exposure to environmental toxins. Traditional methods to determine the seminal oxidative stress do not evaluate this status directly, but rather measure its components or intermediate products indirectly, instead. The major disadvantages of the traditional methods are related with time and cost as these methods are extremely time consuming and require expensive equipment, consumables and highly skilled laboratory personnel. To overcome these drawbacks, the miOXSYS ® system, a method which directly measures the oxidation-reduction potential (OrP), was developed. The evaluation of the OrP using miOXSYS ® is cost-effective, easy and quick. However, this newly introduced method to evaluate the oxidative status of semen still requires validation in different andrology laboratory settings across the world.

Relationship of Seminal Oxidation-Reduction Potential with Sperm DNA Integrity and pH in Idiopathic Infertile Patients

“…Since the oxidative status of a semen sample depends both on ROS and antioxidants, seminal oxidative state assessments must take into account the levels of both agents present in the seminal plasma. In this sense, the ORP values measured by the MiOXSYS system have been proposed as a good biomarker to assess this redox balance [15,48]. Still, the relationship of this system with other seminal parameters is not yet well defined.…”

The Impact of Oxidative Stress in Male Infertility

“…The analysis of semen parameters according to the WHO guidelines represents, currently, the gold standard for male infertility diagnosis. However, several studies showed that ROS-induced sperm oxidation can result in sperm quality alterations, leading to a decrease in sperm fertilizing potential ( Agarwal and Majzoub, 2017 ; Dutta et al, 2019 ; Martins and Agarwal, 2019 ). Based on this evidence, new tests aimed to evaluate male fertility by monitoring oxidative stress status are needed.…”

“…Different oxidative stress assays exist, focusing on ROS generation, lipid peroxidation products and total antioxidant capacity. ROS measurement in semen include different methods as chemiluminescence, nitro blue tetrazolium (NBT) test, cytochrome c reduction test and electron spin resonance ( Dutta et al, 2019 ; Martins and Agarwal, 2019 ).…”

Impact of Oxidative stress on Infertility, with emphasis on infertility management strategies

“…i) Impairment of Spermatozoa in humans: Impaired sperms are one of the major causes of infertility. It has been documented that the nucleohistone compartment of sperms which contains histone-bound DNA sequences like telomeres and promoters of genes for embryonic development, are often at a high risk of oxidative stress, leading to infertility [8,9]. Also, the relative decrease in protamine 2 levels, in the ratio of protamine1: protamine2, at the level of m-RNA and protein, also results in infertility.…”

“…This problem of infertility due to oxidative stress or other reasons, can be solved by Antioxidant supplementation such as glutathione and/ or Assisted Reproductive Techniques, ART [2], fi nally to bring a smile on the couple's face. Measurement of oxidation-reduction potential by MiOXSYS ® system, is yet another approach to solve the problem of oxidative stress [8].…”