Prostaglandin concentrations in the semen of fertile men

Abstract

The PG concentrations in the semen of 23 fertile men were 73 microgram PGE/ml, 267 microgram 19-OH PGE/ml, 2.1 microgram PGF/ml and 18.3 microgram 19-OH PGF/ml. The wide ranges of concentrations found for the PGEs (2-272 microgram/ml) and for the 19-OH PGEs (53-1094 microgram/ml) throw some doubt on the previously established correlation between infertility and low prostaglandin concentrations.

Semen Promotes the Differentiation of Tolerogenic Dendritic Cells

“…PGE 2 and its derivates are present at very high concentrations in human seminal plasma: the primary forms PGE 1 and PGE 2 are found at concentrations .70 mg/ml, whereas the hydroxylated form 19-OH-PGE 2 reaches values .250 mg/ml (8). In fact, PGE 2 is present at ∼10,000-fold higher concentration in seminal plasma than that produced locally at inflammation sites (56).…”

“…The concentration of PGs in human seminal plasma is also extremely high, reaching levels .300 mg/ml (8).…”

Significance of intracellular calcium and cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate in the mechanisms by which prostaglandins influence human sperm function

“…The specific action of the -series prostaglandins is noteworthy because the doses of PGE used in this study to increase penetration rates (60 µg/ml or 170 µ ) or elevate cAMP (16-8 µg/ml or 47 µ ) are severalfold higher than the 10µ dose of PGE normally used in biological experiments to achieve, for example, maximal suppression of macrophage function through the elevation of intracellular cAMP (O'Donnell, 1974;Schultz, Pavlidis, Stylos & Chirigos, 1978;Taffet, Pace & Russell, 1981). Nevertheless, the doses of prostaglandin employed in the present study are physiological in the sense that seminal plasma from normal fertile men may contain 2-272 µg PGE/ml and 53-1094 µg 19-hydroxy PGE/ml (Templeton, Cooper & Kelly, 1978) (Kanwar, Yanagimachi & Lopata, 1979). It is doubtful whether microgram quantities of PGE would be encountered by human spermatoza during their ascent of the female reproductive tract, except possibly, in the local environment of the cumulus mass, where the acrosome reaction is thought to be initiated.…”

Energy Management of Mature Mammalian Spermatozoa

“…A wide array of seminal plasma components have been identified as motility activators. From these, probably the most known are prostaglandins, which have been found as a common seminal plasma component in several species like human and bovine [25,52], although there are other components that plays a role as motility activators. Regarding prostaglandins, it has been described that their motility activation role is not mediated by receptors [49].…”

“…This resting step is of the utmost importance, since at this point sperm, in tightly contact with oviductal cells, reach full capacitated status [14,55]. Capacitation implies a myriad of functional and structural changes, like loss of cell membrane cholesterol, increase in tyrosine, serine and threonine phosphorylation levels of a wide array of separate proteins and intracellular calcium mobilization, whose full description is not possible in this chapter (see [52,53] as reviews). Capacitation, however, has a great interest in the sense that its full achievement again implies new energy requirements to carry out processes like the increase in tyrosine phosphorylation of specific sperm proteins, such as pro-acrosin [13,19].…”