Respiratory chain enzyme activities in spermatozoa from untreated Parkinson's disease patients

We studied respiratory chain enzyme activities in spermatozoa homogenates f rom 12 untreated Parkinson's disease (PD) male patients and from 23 age mat ched healthy male controls. When compared with controls, PD patients showed significantly lower specific activities for complexes If III, II+III, and IV. However, citrate synthase corrected activities were similar in patients and controls. Values for enzyme activities in the PD group did not correla te with age at onset, duration, scores of the Unified Parkinson's Disease R ating Scales and Hoehn and Yahr staging. These results suggest that this ti ssue cannot be used to develop a diagnostic test for PD.