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Anna Rignell-Hydbom,¹ Lars Rylander,¹ Aleksander Giwercman,² B.A.G. Jönsson,¹ Christian Lindh,¹ Patrizia Eleuteri,³ Michele Rescia,³ Giorgio Leter,³ Eugenia Cordelli,³ Marcello Spano,³ and Lars Hagmar¹

¹Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Lund University Hospital, Lund, Sweden; ²Fertility Centre, Malmö University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden; ³Section of Toxicology and Biomedical Sciences, ENEA Casaccia Research Centre, Rome, Italy

Abstract
Persistent organochlorine pollutants (POPs) such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (p,p´-DDE) , the major metabolite of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) , are stable lipophilic compounds widely found in the environment and in the general population. They can enter the food chain, and their negative impact on male reproduction is currently under active scrutiny. To explore the hypothesis that environmental exposure to these compounds is associated with altered sperm chromatin structure integrity in human sperm, we conducted a study of 176 Swedish fishermen (with low and high consumption of fatty fish, a very important exposure source of POPs) . We determined serum levels of 2,2´,4,4´,5,5´-hexachlorobiphenyl (CB-153) and p,p´-DDE, and we used the sperm chromatin structure assay (SCSA) to assess sperm DNA/chromatin integrity. When CB-153 serum levels (individual dose range, 39-1,460 ng/g lipid) were categorized into equally sized quintiles, we found an association with the DNA fragmentation index (%DFI) . A significantly lower %DFI was found in the lowest CB-153 quintile (< 113 ng/g lipid) compared with the other quintiles ; there was a similar tendency, although not statistically significant, between %DFI and p,p´-DDE. These results suggest that POP exposure may have a slight negative impact on human sperm chromatin integrity. Key words: DDE, polychlorinated biphenyls, sperm chromatin integrity, sperm chromatin structure assay (SCSA) . Environ Health Perspect 113:175-179 (2005) . doi:10.1289/ehp.7252 available via http://dx.doi.org/ doi:10.1289/ehp.7252 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 22 November 2004]

Address correspondence to A. Rignell-Hydbom, Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Lund University, SE-221 85 Lund, Sweden. Telephone: 46-46-177280. Fax: 46-46-173669. E-mail: Anna.Rignell-Hydbom@ymed.lu.se

This work was supported by grants from the European Commission, Quality of Life and Management of Living Resources, Key Action Four on Environment and Health (contract QLK4-CT-2001-00202) , the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning, and the Medical Faculty, Lund University.

The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.

Received 13 May 2004 ; accepted 22 November 2004.

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