Chronic exposure to Glyphosate-based herbicides impairs semen quality

San Luis

Congreso; LXXI Reunión Anual de la SAI.; 2023

Sociedad Argentina de Inmunologia

In the last two decades, more than 90% of the cultivable land is dedicated to theproduction of herbicide-resistant genetically modified crops, which hassignificantly increased the production and use of glyphosate-based herbicides(GBH). Human studies assessing detrimental effects of GHB on reproductivehealth, especially in men, are scarce.The aim of this work was to study the impact of chronic exposure to GBH in menseeking care for infertility analyzing its impact on sperm quality and semeninflammation.We performed a retrospective analysis (2016-2022) of sperm quality parametersin a cohort of 242 reproductive-aged male patients who claimed to be exposed toGBH and in 155 healthy control individuals. The samples were collected bymasturbation after 48-72 hours of sexual abstinence and semen analysis wasperformed according to the WHO manual. On the other hand, a prospective studyassessing sperm quality in 19 patients who were under the same conditions and11 healthy control individuals was carried out to analyze the composition of proandanti-inflammatory cytokines in seminal plasma. IL-4, IL-2, IP-10, IL-1B, TNF-α, MCP-1, IL-17a, IL-6, IL-8, TGF-β, IL- 10, IFN- and IL-12 p70 concentrations inseminal plasma were analyzed by Legend Plex. Data were analyzed using thenon-parametric Mann-Whitney test.Patients chronically exposed to GBH showed significantly reduced sperm countsper mL and impaired sperm motility and morphology (p<0,05). In addition, semencounts of peroxidase-positive leukocytes were significantly increased in patientsexposed to GBH respect to controls individuals (p<0,05). Remarkably,significantly higher levels of IL-8 were found in semen from patients exposed toGBH with respect to control individuals (p<0,05).Our results indicate that chronic exposure to GBH induce changes in thecomposition of seminal plasma and decrease sperm quality thus impairing malefertility potential.