AUTHOR=Stalker Kelaney , Pollard Chad , Aston Kenneth , Jenkins Tim 

TITLE=Tissue specific age acceleration patterns in the sperm of oligozoospermic men

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Reproductive Health

VOLUME=4

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/reproductive-health/articles/10.3389/frph.2022.1043904

DOI=10.3389/frph.2022.1043904

ISSN=2673-3153

ABSTRACT=<p>To determine if disease can modify aging patterns in an affected tissue without altering the aging patterns of other tissues, blood and semen of individuals with oligozoospermia (<italic>n</italic> = 10) were compared to the blood and semen of individuals with normozoospermia (<italic>n</italic> = 24). DNA methylation data was obtained <italic>via</italic> Illumina's 850 K array. The Horvath and Jenkins age calculators were then utilized to predict the epigenetic age of blood and sperm. Epigenetic age of sperm was approximated using germ-line age differential (GLAD) values. Using nonpaired <italic>t</italic>-tests, it was found that sperm of oligozoospermic men (mean GLAD score of 0.078) were predicted to be significantly older than the sperm of normozoospermic men (mean GLAD score of −0.017), returning a <italic>p</italic>-value of 0.03. However, there was not a significant epigenetic age difference between the blood of those with oligozoospermia (mean GLAD equivalent score of −0.027) and normozoospermia (mean GLAD equivalent score of 0.048), producing a <italic>p</italic>-value of 0.20. These results lead to the conclusion that tissue specific aging is occurring in sperm of oligozoospermic individuals but not in unaffected somatic tissues (in this case, blood).</p>