Sperm Na⁺ K⁺-ATPase and Ca²⁺-ATPase activities: A potential predictive parameter of sperm motility disorder in infertile men

Current highlight on the etiology of male infertility is disorder of sperm motility in which caused by ion homeostasis imbalance involving the ubiquitous multifunctional transmembrane protein, Na+K+-ATPase and Ca²⁺-ATPase enzymes. The emphasis of this review is evaluating the sperm Na+K+-ATPase and Ca²⁺ATPase activity as predictive parameters of sperm motility disorder. To this purpose, a computerized search of PubMed database was performed and obtained data were reviewed in this paper. The retrieved studies were laboratory experiments involving human and mice sperm as the subjects. Na+ K+-ATPase and Ca²⁺-ATPase play an essential role in sperm motility by controlling ion homeostasis. Na+ K+-ATPase maintains the intracellular pH by transporting 3 Na⁺ out and 2 K+ into the cell, whereas Ca²⁺-ATPase extrudes Ca²⁺ from the cell. The impairment of these enzymes and its isoforms, Na+ K+-ATPase a4 and PMCA4 expression were proved to decrease sperm motility.