Chemotherapy and the somatic mutation burden of sperm.

ABSTRACT: Many chemotherapeutic agents impair cancer growth by inducing DNA damage. The impact of these agents on mutagenesis in normal cells, including sperm, is largely unknown. Here, we applied high-fidelity duplex sequencing to 94 samples from 36 individuals exposed to diverse chemotherapies and 32 controls. We found that in many of the sperm samples from men exposed to chemotherapy, the mutation burden was elevated as compared with controls and the expected burden based on trio studies, with 1 patient having a more than 10-fold increase over that expected for age. Saliva from this same individual also had a markedly higher mutation burden. We then validated this finding using other tissues, also finding an increased mutation burden in the blood and liver of many patients exposed to chemotherapy

SUBMITTER: Picciotto S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12220962 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature