1. Cannabis consumption might exert deleterious effects on sperm nuclear quality in infertile men
- Author
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France Verhaeghe, Pierre Di Pizio, Cynthia Bichara, Benoit Berby, Aurélie Rives, Fanny Jumeau, Véronique Sétif, Louis Sibert, Christine Rondanino, Nathalie Rives, Gamétogenèse et Qualité du Gamète - ULR 4308 (GQG), Université de Rouen Normandie (UNIROUEN), Normandie Université (NU)-Normandie Université (NU)-Université de Lille, CHU Rouen, and Normandie Université (NU)
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,Infertility ,education ,Aneuploidy ,DNA fragmentation ,Semen ,Male infertility ,Andrology ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,medicine ,Humans ,Infertility, Male ,health care economics and organizations ,Retrospective Studies ,Cannabis ,030304 developmental biology ,Cell Nucleus ,Chromosome Aberrations ,0303 health sciences ,030219 obstetrics & reproductive medicine ,biology ,urogenital system ,business.industry ,fungi ,food and beverages ,Obstetrics and Gynecology ,[SDV.BDLR]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Reproductive Biology ,medicine.disease ,biology.organism_classification ,Spermatozoa ,Sperm ,Semen Analysis ,Cross-Sectional Studies ,Reproductive Medicine ,Sperm nuclear damage ,Marijuana Use ,business ,Spermatogenesis ,Developmental Biology - Abstract
Research question Can cannabis consumption alter sperm nuclear integrity in infertile men? Design A retrospective cross-sectional study conducted between July 2003 and December 2013, which included 54 men who consulted for male-factor infertility. Twenty-seven infertile men who were regular cannabis users were matched to 27 infertile men who were cannabis non-users. To complement the conventional semen parameter and plasma hormone level assessments, sperm nuclear alterations were explored using fluorescence in-situ hybridization to assess numerical chromosomal abnormalities, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labelling to investigate DNA fragmentation, aniline blue staining to examine chromatin condensation and a motile sperm organelle morphology examination to detect vacuoles in sperm heads. Results The rates of sperm aneuploidy (P = 0.0044), diploidy (P = 0.037), total chromosome abnormalities (P = 0.0027) and DNA fragmentation (P = 0.027) were significantly higher in cannabis users than in non-cannabis users. Conclusions Cannabis consumption might have deleterious effects on sperm nuclear quality in infertile men by increasing numerical chromosome abnormalities and DNA fragmentation. Cannabis consumption induces these detrimental effects on the progression of spermatogenesis from meiotic stages to spermiogenesis and potentially on post-testicular sperm maturation in infertile men. Any potential findings, however, need to be validated with larger sample size, and our data are only exploratory findings.
- Published
- 2020
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