Objective To explore changes of seminal plasma lipid metabolites in patients with asthenozoospermia (AS). Methods A total of 10 AS patients (the AS group) and 10 healthy fertile males (the control group) were selected as the research subjects. Semen samples of research subjects from the two groups were collected routinely for extracting seminal plasma samples. Non⁃targeted metabolomics experiments was adopted to analyze lipid metabolites in seminal plasma samples of both groups. The differential expressions of lipid metabolites in both groups was analyzed through the methods such as principal component analysis, orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis, and clustering heat map. Results A total of 525 lipid metabolites were detected, with 16 differential lipid metabolites in final screening and identification. These differential lipid metabolites were mainly involved in sphingolipid (SM and Hex1Cer), glyceryl phosphatide (PC, PE, and PS), dimethylphosphatidic acid (BisMePA) and free fatty acid (FA), etc. Compared with the control group, the AS group exhibited 2 and 14 categories that expressed up⁃ and down⁃regulation, respectively. Conclusion As compared with healthy fertile males, AS patients obtain prominent changes in seminal plasma lipid metabolites. These differential expressions of lipid metabolites may participate the regulation of sperm function, exerting crucial effects on maintaining male fertility.

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