Keywords: Autoimmune disease; Exhaustion of cells; Human herpesvirus 6; Long-COVID; NK cells.

The pathophysiological mechanisms responsible for male subfertility/infertility caused by or complicated by genital heat stress remains unclear in many respects. Because seminal plasma creates the environment for the proper functioning of spermatozoa, in this study, we verified the associations among standard spermiograms, seminal biochemical parameters (neutral alpha-glucosidase, fructose, and citric acid) and oxidative stress markers (total antioxidant capacity, catalase activity, superoxide dismutase activity, and malondialdehyde concentration) in distinct entities associated with male infertility with and without long-time exposure to local hyperthermia. We demonstrated that men exposed to prolonged environmental or clinically recognized local heat stress in adulthood may suffer from dysregulation of seminal antioxidant components, which can be directly associated with epididymal and prostate function. The comparative analysis of the studied parameters showed numerous correlations among all biochemical parameters (particularly neutral alpha-glucosidase) with low standard semen quality in almost all the investigated infertile groups. In light of the data obtained in this originally designed study, we conclude that more attention should be paid to the epididymis and accessory gland function in subfertile and infertile men exposed to genital heat stress, especially in the context of novel treatment algorithms (targeted therapies).

Varicocele is a major entity defined within male infertility. In this report we have studied the influence of laparoscopic varicocelectomy on semen quality, biochemical parameters of seminal plasma and sperm DNA fragmentation. In this study, the semen samples from patients with left-side varicocele of grade II-III before and after laparoscopic varicocelectomy were compared to healthy individuals and separated into three groups. The volume of semen, sperm concentration (106/ml), motility (%), viability (%) and normal morphology (%) were assessed. Total antioxidant capacity (TAC), catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and malondialdehyde (MDA) together with other biochemical substances in seminal plasma as alpha-glucosidase (α-Glu), fructose (Fr) and citric acid (CA) were determined by ELISA method. The spermatozoa activity including ion-transports through sodium, potassium ATPase (Na+, K+-ATPase) and calcium, magnesium ATPase (Ca2+, Mg2+-ATPase) were determined by using spectrophotometry. In addition, flow cytometry method for detection of sperm DNA fragmentation was used. The results showed, that three months after varicocelectomy such intervention led to significant postoperative improvement in volume of semen (p<0.001), total sperm count (p<0.001), sperm motility (p<0.001) and spermatozoa with normal morphology (p<0.001). We found decreased α-Glu levels due to varicocelectomy (p<0.05). There has been shown a high positive correlation between Na+, K+-ATPase and Ca2+, Mg2+-ATPase activity with total number of spermatozoa (p<0.05). The TAC levels and DNA fragmentation values after varicocelectomy can be considered as significant indicators of good prognosis after surgical intervention. It has to be emphasized that α-Glu levels and total sperm count expressed statistically significant both positive and negative predictive values for semen assessment. Varicocelectomy may lead to significant improvement of semen quality although the observations must be correlated with clinical pregnancies observed thereafter.

The presence of several different autoantibodies (auto-AT) at the same time is a specific peculiarity of the “autoantibody profile” of SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus). It is known that the induction of auto-AT formation involves both nonspecific and antigen-specific immunoregulatory disorders. In apoptosis, the primary changes in the cell membrane composition or/and the excretion of intracellular compounds into the intercellular milieu lead to an inflammatory reaction. The purpose of the study was to highlight the connection between apoptosis and secondary necrosis of granulocytes and
mononuclear (lymphocytes and monocytes) with inflammation activity in patients with SLE to improve diagnosis and basic therapy efficacy. In patients with SLE, secondary necrosis of granulocytes was 3.4 times higher compared to healthy control. Moreover, the level of apoptotic monocytes was 1.87 times higher, and secondary necrosis of monocytes was 5.58 times higher than healthy control. The secondary necrosis of lymphocytes was higher by 9.0 times than in the case of healthy control. The usage of Apolect technology in patients with SLE allows differentiating various cell types of immunological inflammation with the analysis of the degree of apoptosis and secondary necrosis of immunocompetent cells (granulocytes, monocytes, lymphocytes) to determine the agg