High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of free polyamines in human seminal plasma

Putrescine, spermidine and spermine were determined quantitatively in 192 ultrafiltered samples of human seminal plasma with a precision of +/- 1.9% by pre-column derivatization with benzoyl chloride and reversed-phase chromatography. The concentrations of free putrescine, spermidine and spermine ranged from 0 to 1.96 mmol/l (mean = 0.10), 0.017-0.96 mmol/l (mean = 0.16) and 0.13 to 20.80 mmol/l (mean = 2.43), respectively. A significant correlation between the amounts of spermidine and spermine was found (r2 = 0.806, P less than 0.0005). Otherwise, no significant correlations between free-polyamine levels and routine spermiogram parameters such as volume, sperm count, motility, vitality and morphology were obtained.