Asthenospermia has been considered as one of the crucial causes of male infertility, which was closely related to epididymal dysfunction. Lots of documents have revealed that taurine palys an important role in male reproduction, including antioxidation, membrane stabilization, stimulation of sexual hormone secretion and elevation of sperm quality. The objective of this study was to expose the effect of taurine on spermatozoa quality and function in ornidazole-induced asthenospermia rats. We found that taurine treatment could obviously recover the decline of cauda epididymal sperm count, viability and motility, and the elevation of sperm abnormality in asthenospermia animals. Spermatozoa acrosin, LDH-X, SDH and CCO activities of model rats also were notably increased by taurine administration. The present data indicated that taurine could raise spermatozoa quality and function by elevating mitochondrial energy metabolism. Notably, taurine supplementation markedly raised serum GnRH, LH and T levels in asthenospermia rays, suggesting taurine rescued asthenosperm by means of stimulating hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular axis secretion. We also found that concentrations of asthenospermia epididymal carnitine, SA, α-Glu and ACP, and mRNA expression levels of MMP7 and IDO2 were significantly rised by taurine administration, indicating taurine may protect epididymal epithelium structure, improve secretion activity, and maintain intraluminal microenvironment homeostasis. Finally, the present results showed taurine effectively increased cauda epididymal SOD, GSH and γ-GT levels in model rats, reduced ROS and MDA production, suggesting epididymal antioxidant ability of asthenospermia rats could be elevated by taurine treatment. To sum up, our results indicated that taurine can promote spermatozoa quality and function in ornidazole-induced asthenospermia rats by facilitating epididymal epithelium secretion and luminal microenvironment homeostasis.
Keywords: Epididymal function; Ornidazole-induced asthenospermia rats; Sexual hormone; Spermatozoa quality and function; Taurine.