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Gunnar Toft,¹ Manhai Long,² Tanja Krüger,² Philip S. Hjelmborg,² Jens Peter Bonde,¹ Anna Rignell-Hydbom,³ Ewa Tyrkiel,⁴ Lars Hagmar,³ Aleksander Giwercman,⁵ Marcello Spanó,⁶ Davide Bizzaro,⁷ Henning S. Pedersen,⁸ Vladymir Lesovoy,⁹ Jan K. Ludwicki,⁴ and Eva C. Bonefeld-Jørgensen²

¹Department of Occupational Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark; ²Unit of Cellular and Molecular Toxicology, Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Institute of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark; ³Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Psychiatric Epidemiology, Lund University, Lund University Hospital, Lund, Sweden; ⁴National Institute of Hygiene, Warsaw, Poland; ⁵Malmö University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden; ⁶Section of Toxicology and Biomedical Sciences, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment, Casaccia Research Centre, Rome, Italy; ⁷Institute of Biology and Genetics, Politechnical University of Marche, Ancona, Italy; ⁸Centre for Arctic Environmental Medicine, Nuuk, Greenland; ⁹Kharkiv Regional Clinical Centre of Urology and Nephrology, Kharkiv, Ukraine

Abstract
Background: Semen quality in humans may be influenced by exposure to endocrine-disrupting compounds.

Objectives: We analyzed associations between semen characteristics and serum xenoestrogen receptor (XER) , xenoandrogen receptor (XAR) , and aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) transactivity. XER and XAR activity were measured in serum samples cleared for endogenous steroid hormones and AhR activity in raw lipophilic serum extracts free of proteins.

Results: All together, 319 men from Warsaw (Poland) , Greenland, Kharkiv (Ukraine) , and Sweden provided semen and blood samples. No strong and consistent associations between xenobiotic activity and semen quality measures were observed in the four populations. However, when the data were combined across populations sperm concentration increased 40% per unit increase in XER activity [95% confidence interval (CI) , 1–79%] in the subgroup with XER activity below the reference level. Among subjects with XER activity above the reference level an increase of 14% (95% CI, 2–28%) was found. Furthermore, an increase of 10% motile sperm per unit increase in XER activity below reference level (95% CI, 0.2–20) was found. We are unable to exclude that the associations are chance findings.

Conclusion: Alteration of XER, XAR, or AhR transactivity within the range found in serum from the general European and Inuit population seems not to markedly deteriorate sperm cell concentration, motility, or morphology in adult men.

Key words: androgen receptor, aryl hydrocarbon receptor, CALUX, endocrine disruption, estrogen receptor, human, sperm. Environ Health Perspect 115(suppl 1) : 15–20 (2007) . doi:10.1289/ehp.9352 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 8 June 2007]

This article is part of the monograph "Endocrine Disruptors—Exposure Assessment, Novel End Points, and Low-Dose and Mixture Effects."

Supplemental Material is available online at http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2007/9352/suppl.pdf

Address correspondence to G. Toft, Department of Occupational Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, Norrebrogade 44, Build. 2C, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Telephone: 45 8949 4251. Fax: 45 8949 4260. E-mail: gutof@as.aaa.dk

The INUENDO project is supported by The European Commission 5th Framework Programme Quality of Life and Management of living resources, Key action four on environment and health (contract QLK4-CT-2001-00202) , http: //www.inuendo.dk. The work has also been funded by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency. The Ukrainian part of the study was supported by a grant from INTAS (contract 2001 2205) , and the Swedish part of the study was also supported by the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural sciences and Spatial Planning.

The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.

Received 22 May 2006 ; accepted 5 September 2006.