Chronic Alcohol Ingestion Influences Sperm Semen Quality and Global DNA Methylation in Pre-implantation Embryos

Abstract: Hematoxylin-eosin staining， sperm motility and morphology analysis technology， immunofluorescence technique were used to investigate adverse effects of alcohol on hepatic tissue of mice， semen quality，genome-wide DNA methylation of sperm and pre-implantation embryos from different groups. HE staining results indicated that in this experiment， different degree of damage in liver were detected from treatment group I with a gastric injection with 4~5 g/kg modified alcohol solution for 30 d and treatment group II with injection for 45 d. The measurement of sperm motility results suggested that the main parameters were associated with a significantly reduction in treatment group I and II， meanwhile treatment group I was significantly greater than treatment group II. There were significant decreases in the rate of normal sperms morphology in treatment groups. Mice in chronic alcohol ingestion had a significant decrease in semi-quantification of genome-wide DNA methylation levels， compared with the animal without treatment， and treatment group I was significantly greater than treatment group II. In 2-cell and 4-cell stage of preimplantation embryo， DNA methylation level in the control was significantly greater than the treatment groups， and treatment group I was significantly higher than treatment group II. After 8-cell stage， there was no significant difference between treatment group I and control， but treatment group II significantly lower than control from stages of 8-cell and morula. In the period of blastocyst， no obvious difference was found between each other. Taken together， our results suggested that alcohol on male mice sperm damage may be the direct reason of epigenetic abnormalities in mice pre-implantation embryo， and stopping alcohol intake could alleviate some of its negative effects.

CSTR: 32200.14.cjcb.2013.08.0005