Associations Between Metal Exposure,Seminal Plasma MicroRNAs And Semen Quality

Objective: To investigate the associations between seminal plasma micro RNAs,environmental metal exposure and semen quality,using metal concentrations in seminal plasma and repeated urine samples as biomarker of exposure.Methods: We conduct a study in Wuhan to investigate the associations between metal exposure and semen quality.A total of 104 participants who had a semen sample and two spot urine samples were selected randomly.Seminal plasma micro RNA(micro RNA-21,micro RNA-34 c,micro RNA-106a)expression levels,semen quality parameters and,metal levels(aluminum,chromium,manganese,iron,cobalt,nickel,copper,zinc,arsenic,Selenium,molybdenum,cadmium,tin,antimony,tungsten,antimony,lead,uranium)were determined.Multiple linear regression models were applied to analyze the associations between seminal plasma micro RNAs,metal concentrations and semen quality parameters.Results: After adjusting for potential confounders and multiple comparisons,seminal plasma manganese,iron,cobalt,copper,zinc,selenium,molybdenum,cadmium,antimony and lead were significantly associated with increasing expression level of mi R-21 in single-element models(all FDR-P<0.05).Seminal plasma arsenic and thallium were suggestively associated with increasing expression level of mi R-21(all FDR-P<0.1).Cobalt,molybdenum and lead were significantly associated with increasing expression level of mi R-21 in multiple-element model(all FDR-P<0.05).In addition,increasing expression levels of mi R-106 a were associated with increasing sperm density.Conclusions: Exposure to manganese,iron,cobalt,copper,zinc,arsenic,selenium,molybdenum,cadmium,barium,strontium and lead may be related to up-regulation of mi R-21 expression.Up-regulation of mi R-106 a expression levels may be associated with increased sperm density.