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Urinary concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon and phthalate metabolite mixtures in relation to semen quality among men attending an infertility clinic

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Abstract

Previous studies have reported that exposure to phthalates and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is individually associated with altered semen quality, but no human studies have evaluated their joint effects of exposure mixtures, a more real-world scenario. We aimed to explore urinary metabolite mixtures of phthalates and PAHs in associations with semen quality. Repeated spot-urine samples gathered from 695 men attending a fertility clinic were analyzed for urinary metabolites of eight phthalates and ten monohydroxylated-PAHs (OH-PAHs). Principal component analysis (PCA)-multivariable linear regression (MLR) model, quantile g-computation (qg-comp), and Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR) were applied to estimate the associations of urinary mixtures of phthalate and OH-PAH metabolites with semen quality. The overall effects of urinary mixtures of phthalate and PAH metabolites on semen quality were not statistically significant. However, hydroxynaphthalene (OHNa) factor identified from PCA was monotonically associated with decreased total sperm count and sperm concentration, whereas di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) factor was non-monotonically related to increased progressive sperm motility and total sperm motility. Qg-comp and BKMR models confirmed these findings and identified 2-OHNa and 2-OHFlu as the primary negative contributors, whereas MEOHP and MEHP as the primary positive contributors. Our findings suggest that exposure to mixtures of naphthalene and DEHP is associated with altered semen quality. The finding is warranted to confirm in further well-designed epidemiological studies.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Plan of China (No. 2018YFC1004201) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81872585).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Yan-Ling Deng, Pan Yang, Yi-Xin Wang, Chong Liu, Qiong Luo, Tian Shi, Jia-Yue Zeng, Ting-Ting Lu, Pan-Pan Chen, Yu Miao, Min Zhang, Fei-Peng Cui, Wen-Qing Lu & Qiang Zeng

  2. Key Laboratory of Environment and Health, Ministry of Education & Ministry of Environmental Protection, and State Key Laboratory of Environmental Health (Incubating), School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Yan-Ling Deng, Pan Yang, Yi-Xin Wang, Chong Liu, Qiong Luo, Tian Shi, Jia-Yue Zeng, Ting-Ting Lu, Pan-Pan Chen, Yu Miao, Min Zhang, Fei-Peng Cui, Wen-Qing Lu & Qiang Zeng

  3. Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China

    Pan Yang

  4. Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Yi-Xin Wang

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  1. Yan-Ling Deng
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  2. Pan Yang
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  7. Jia-Yue Zeng
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  9. Pan-Pan Chen
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  10. Yu Miao
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  11. Min Zhang
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  12. Fei-Peng Cui
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  13. Wen-Qing Lu
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  14. Qiang Zeng
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Contributions

Yan-Ling Deng: conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, software, visualization, data curation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. Pan Yang: methodology, supervision, writing—review and editing. Yi-Xin Wang: investigation, methodology, supervision, writing—review and editing; Chong Liu: supervision, writing—review and editing. Qiong Luo: investigation. Tian Shi: investigation. Jia-Yue Zeng: investigation. Ting-Ting Lu: investigation. Pan-Pan Chen: investigation. Yu Miao: investigation. Min Zhang: investigation. Fei-Peng Cui: investigation. Wen-Qing Lu: supervision, funding acquisition, resources. Qiang Zeng: project administration, conceptualization, methodology, supervision, writing—review and editing, funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Qiang Zeng.

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Deng, YL., Yang, P., Wang, YX. et al. Urinary concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon and phthalate metabolite mixtures in relation to semen quality among men attending an infertility clinic. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 81749–81759 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21525-y

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