Oxidative Stress and Its Effects on Male Infertility: A Review Study

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are essential for sperm physiological functions including capacitation, acrosome reaction, fertilization, and etc. Sperm cell in comparison with other cells is highly prone to oxidative attack due to high level of membrane unsaturated fatty acids and low volume of cytoplasmic space. Therefore, the aim of this review article was to understand the causes of oxidative stress production, the mechanisms involved in oxidative stress, its effects and therapeutic strategies for infertile men.
For this review, all relevant information were collected via databases such as PubMed and Google Scholar, and totally, information were extracted from 60 articles.
Several studies showed that level of pathological ROS was significantly higher in infertile men in comparison to fertile men, and under these conditions, high level of sperm apoptotic, loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, caspase activation, sperm phosphatidylserine exposure, oxidative DNA damage, and low quality of sperm parameters were observed. Oxidative damages can affect sperm DNA integrity and are associated to miscarriage and developmental abnormalities in the offspring.
Oxidative stress is caused by several variable factors, and the use of an effective antioxidant can decrease the oxidative stress level and improve fertility potential in couples with male infertility factor.