Comparative study of the effects of diabetes and hypothyroidism on sperm chromatin quality in adult mice

Diabetes and abnormal thyroid function cause disorders in the reproductive system, which are associated with complications such as decreased testosterone, diameter of seminiferous tubule, libido, sperm motility, normal sperm morphology and fertility. It has been found that high blood sugar and decreased thyroid hormones may affect the quality of sperm and reduce the chances of male fertility. It has been also shown that changes in the sperm chromatin structure during the process of spermatogenesis is correlated with reduced number and motility or abnormal sperm morphology. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate the effects of diabetes and hypothyroidism on sperm chromatin quality.

In this study, 60 Balb/C male mice were randomly divided into 5 groups: 1) control, 2) diabetic, 3) diabetes + insulin, 4) sham and 5) hypothyroid group. After 35 days, left epididymis were removed to assess sperm chromatin quality using aniline blue staining.

The results of this research showed that sperm chromatin integrity in the diabetic and hypothyroid groups significantly changed as increased the percentage of abnormal sperm chromatin and reduced chromatin quality compared to other groups (P<0.05) and insulin treatment improved this parameter compared to the diabetic group. (P<0.05).

Our findings showed that diabetes and hypothyroidism have negative effects on chromatin integrity and suffering from the such diseases will probably increase infertility.