Evaluation of the relationships between oxidative stress, inflammation, hormonal status and sperm parameters in rats: Canonical correlation analysis

Many endocrine or non-endocrine factors are involved in sperm production<bold>.</bold> Although reproductive hormones are very important for the initiation and maintenance of spermatogenesis, other factors, such as inflammation and oxidative stress, affect spermatogenesis<bold>.</bold> The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationships between sperm parameters and hormones, oxidative stress, and inflammation status. We conducted this study on 40 rats. Sperm parameters (motility, abnormal sperm rate, and dead sperm rate), oxidative stress (malondialdehyde, glutathione, glutathione peroxidase, and catalase), inflammation (NF-kappa beta, TNF-alpha, IL-1 beta, IL-6, and IL-10), and hormone parameters (follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, testosterone, melatonin, and corticosterone) were determined. Relationships between mentioned parameters were investigated by canonical correlation analysis. Canonical correlation coefficients for these data sets (sperm-oxidative stress, sperm-inflammation, and sperm-hormone parameters) were found to be strongly significant (r(c)= 0.875, p<0.001; r(c)= 0.868, p<0.001; r(c)= 0.886, p<0.001, respectively). The rate of explanation of oxidative stress, inflammation parameters and hormones by sperm parameters was 61.80 %, 56.10 % and 63.90 %, respectively. Canonical correlation analysis results have revealed that dead sperm rate is mostly related to nuclear factor-kappa beta (NF-kappa beta), catalase, and corticosterone. CCA, which has taken into account the multiple relationships, has revealed that multidimensional evaluation of data sets can provide important and innovative information to researchers for the assessment of relationships between sperm, oxidative stress, inflammation, and hormone parameters.