Aim: To investigate whether adriamycin induces DNA damage and the formation of γH2AX (the phosphorylated form of histone H2AX) foci in mature spermatozoa.

Methods: Human spermatozoa were treated with adriamycin at different concentrations. γH2AX was analyzed by immunofluorescent staining and flow cytometry and double-strand breaks (DSB) were detected by the comet assay.

Results: The neutral comet assay revealed that the treatment with adriamycin at 2 μg/mL for different times (0.5, 2, 8 and 24 h), or for 8 h at different concentrations (0.4, 2 and 10 μg/mL), induced significant DSB in spermatozoa. Immunofluorent staining and flow cytometry showed that the expression of γH2AX was increased in a dose-dependent and time-dependant manner after the treatment of adriamycin. Adriamycin also induced the concurrent appearance of DNA maintenance/repair proteins RAD50 and 53BP1 with γH2AX in spermatozoa. Wortmannin, an inhibitor of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) family, abolished the co-appearance of these two proteins with γH2AX.

Conclusion: Human mature spermatozoa have the same response to DSB-induced H2AX phosphorylation and subsequent recruitment of DNA maintenance/ repair proteins as somatic cells.

Keywords: adriamycin, human spermatozoa, DNA double strand-breaks, γH2AX

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