Chlamydia trachomatis urogenital infection does not deteriolate sperm quality in young patients

PAIRA DA; OLIVERA C; SILENE SILVERA RUIZ; MOLINA R; TISSERA A; RIVERO VE; SAKA H; MOTRICH RD

Buenos Aires

Congreso; Reunión Anual de Sociedades de Biociencias 2021. SAIC-SAI-SAFIS; 2021

Sociedad Argentina de Inmunologia

Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) is the most prevalent sexually transmitted bacterial infection. Although CT urogenital infection and associatedpathology has been widely described in females, the study ofmale urogenital infection has been neglected. Herein, we analyzedthe prevalence of urogenital infection and its impact on semen qualityparameters and in inflammatory markers in patients. A cohort of140 male patients, aged 20-49 y.o., who attend a reproduction andandrology clinic by control, symptoms of infection or possible. Semensamples were collected by masturbation and semen analysisperformed according to the WHO manual. Infections by CT; HumanPapiloma Virus; Mycoplasma hominis (MH); Herpes Simplex Virustype 1 and type 2 (HSV2); Ureaplasma urealyticum (UU); Trichomonavaginalis; Mycoplasma genitalium (MG); Treponema pallidumand Neisseria gonorrhoeae were assessed by PCR. Semen qualityparameters, ROS, inflammatory cytokines, subpopulations ofleukocytes were analyzed. Statistical analysis was performed byKruskal-Wallis test. A prevalence of CT, UU, MH and MG infectionof 33.6%, 18.0%, 10.0% and 7.2% was found, respectively. Otherpathogens showed to be much less prevalence. Patients infectedwith CT alone or co-infected with HSV2 showed neither significantalterations in most of the sperm quality parameters analyzed norincreased inflammatory biomarkers in semen (p˃0.05). Noteworthy,CT-infection was associated with significantly reduced levels of ROSin semen (p<0.05). On the contrary, patients co-infected with CT andMG showed a significant reduced levels of sperm viability (p<0.05)and increased frequencies of necrotic sperm (p<0.001), not associatedto leukocytospermia. Our results revealed a high prevalence ofCT-infection in young men from our region. Although, CT infectiondoes not significantly impair sperm quality, men would provide a reservoirfor continuous transmission of the infection.