Exposome Profiling of Environmental Pollutants in Seminal Plasma and Novel Associations with Semen Parameters.

Abstract

There is evidence that indicators of male fertility are in decline globally, but the underlying causes to this pressing global concern have yet to be elucidated. While environmental chemicals are likely major contributors, current knowledge of environmental determinants of male fertility is limited and does not adequately explain this phenomenon. Previous studies have typically examined only limited sets of exposures in blood or urine, which may not accurately capture chemical burden in relevant reproductive tissues, and have overlooked a large range of potential concurrent exposures. Here, using an expansive non-targeted analysis to profile the exposome, we detected widespread environmental pollutant exposure from common and rare environmental exposures in seminal plasma. Machine learning pattern recognition and mixture models identified Etridiazole and N-nitrosodiethylamine to be negatively associated with semen parameters. Our findings suggest that these chemicals are detrimental to sperm and exposomic studies can be used to identify potential reproductive toxicants.