COVID Infects Penis, Testicles and Prostate – Causes Pain, Erectile Dysfunction, Reduced Sperm Count
By NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
Testicular pain, erectile dysfunction, reduced sperm count and quality, decreased fertility are direct consequence of infection, new study shows.
Multiple tissues of the
male genital tract can be infected with SARS-CoV-2, reports a
new Northwestern Medicine study in large animal models. The study, in
SARS-CoV-2 infected-rhesus macaques, revealed the prostate, vasculature of
testicles, penis, and testicles were all infected with the virus.
The surprising discovery
was made utilizing a PET scan specially designed to reveal sites of infection
spreading over time in a whole-body scan. Scientists didn’t know what they
would find, but they expected to see the virus in the lungs and high up in the
nose near the brain because people were experiencing loss of taste and smell.
“But the signal that jumped out at us was the complete spread through the male genital tract,” said lead investigator Thomas Hope, professor of cell and developmental biology at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. “We had no idea we would find it there.”
“These results indicate
that the testicular pain, erectile dysfunction, hypogonadism, reduced sperm
count and quality, and decreased fertility associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection
are a direct consequence of infection of cells of the male reproductive tract
and not indirect mechanisms such as fever and inflammation,” Hope said.
The evidence that
infection with SARS-CoV-2 can negatively impact male sexual health and fertility
is increasing every day. But scientists didn’t know the reason and wondered if
the cause was fever and inflammation.
“We just didn’t
understand why it had this negative impact until this study,” Hope said. He
noted viruses such as mumps, Ebola, Zika, SARS-COV-1, and other viruses also
can infect tissues of the male genital tract and negatively impact fertility.
Mumps infection is well known to potentially cause male sterility.
The new study shows how
the virus can cause pathology in the prostate, penis, testicles, and testicular
vasculature (blood vessels), Hope said.
The study is posted as a
preprint on bioRxiv, meaning it should be
considered preliminary research until it is published in a peer-reviewed
journal.
“Even if this is only a
small percentage of the infected, it represents millions of men who may suffer
from a negative impact on their sexual health and fertility,” Hope said.
Clinical studies suggest
10% to 20% of SARS-CoV-2-infected men have symptoms related to male genital
tract dysfunction. This suggests tens of millions of men who have been infected
with SARS-CoV-2, especially those who had severe COVID-19, should
evaluate their sexual health and fertility to determine if additional therapies
could prevent or diminish future problems, Hope said.
“The potential impact of
SARS-CoV-2 infection on sexual and reproductive health should be part of
everyone’s decision to get vaccinated to minimize the chance of death, severe
disease and hospitalization, and infection of the prostate, penis, testicles
and vasculature (blood supply) of testicles,” Hope said.
This is the first PET
(positron emission tomography) probe shown to be able to identify the sites of
SARS-CoV-2 infection in a living animal, the study authors said.
“This approach allows
the sequential scanning of the same animal, which defines the progression of
virus dissemination and time before the virus is purged from the body,” Hope
said. “It also has the potential to increase our understanding of long COVID
and the development of novel therapies targeting different long COVID
comorbidities.”
How the study worked
Early development of a
fluorescently labeled version of the antibody-derived probe suggested a
radioactive version of the probe would reveal the anatomical distribution of
SARS-CoV-2 infection after a PET scan.
The observation of
SARS-CoV-2 infection of the different tissues of the male genital tract emerges
from a new system designed to use a PET scan to detect sites of SARS-CoV-2
infection in a rhesus macaque. The identification of the rhesus macaque as a
major and reproducible site of SARS-CoV-2 infection was unexpected and has
pathological characteristics consistent with the pathology of testicles of
victims of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Future research by
Hope’s lab will:
- Examine male genital tract infection at later timepoints
- Determine if testicles are a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 infection as has been suggested in literature
- Investigate if SARS-CoV-2 infects tissues of the female reproductive system
- Aid in the development of therapies and interventions to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on male fertility
- Goal to eventually do PET scan on patients to determine the location of the virus and the best course of care
Reference: “An immunoPET
probe to SARS-CoV-2 reveals early infection of the male genital tract in rhesus
macaques” by Patrick J. Madden, Yanique Thomas, Robert V. Blair, Sadia Samer,
Mark Doyle, Cecily C. Midkiff, Mark E. Becker, Muhammad S. Arif, Michael D.
McRaven, Lacy M. Simons, Ann M. Carias, Elena Martinelli, Ramon
Lorenzo-Redondo, Judd F Hultquist, Francois J. Villinger, Ronald S. Veazey and
Thomas J. Hope, 28 February 2022, bioRxiv.
DOI:
10.1101/2022.02.25.481974
Other Northwestern
authors include Patrick Madden, Yanique Thomas, Sadia Samer, Mark Becker,
Muhammad Arif, Michael McRaven, Ann Carias, Elena Martinelli, Judd Hultquist,
Lacy Simons and Ramon Lorenzo-Redondo.
This research was funded
by a “Notice of Special Interest” supplement for National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases (of the National Institutes of Health) grant
R37AI094595 for SARS-CoV-2 related studies.
