Research Paper Volume 11, Issue 10 pp 3080—3093
The in vitro effects of gibberellin on human sperm motility
- 1 , 266034, Center for Reproductive Medicine, Qingdao Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266034, China
- 2 , Institute of Reproductive Sciences, College of Life Sciences, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao 266109, China
- 3 , The International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China
Received: November 15, 2018 Accepted: May 7, 2019 Published: May 22, 2019
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.101963How to Cite
Copyright: Xu et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Gibberellin, a plant growth regulator, is widely used to increase the shelf life and quality of fruits and vegetables. In this study, human semen samples were exposed to different concentrations of gibberellin, which reduced spermatozoa motility in vitro. Gibberellin exposure also increased levels of reactive oxygen species and the protein levels of apoptosis markers in human sperm. Gibberellin inhibited the activity of Na+/K+-adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase) and Ca2+-ATPase, which maintain the stability of ions inside and outside the membranes of spermatozoa. Moreover, gibberellin exposure suppressed adenosine triphosphate production and reduced the protein levels of adenosine triphosphate synthases, which may have induced the protein expression of adenosine 5′-monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and its phosphorylated form. These results suggest that gibberellin reduces human sperm motility in vitro by increasing reactive oxygen species levels and reducing ATPase activity, which may upregulate AMPK and consequently reduce the fertilization potential of spermatozoa.