Abstract: The polyol pathway, one of the glucose metabolic pathways, is activated with the elevated level of blood glucose. The accumulated sorbitol and fructose, as well as the imbalanced oxidative stress, are closely related to many diseases when this pathway was highly activated. There are clear relationship between the highly-activated polyol pathway and diabetic complications such as diabetic ophthalmopathy, nephropathy and neuropathy. And the highly-activated polyol pathway can increase the ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) damage of heard or brain, cancer invasiveness, and the neuropathy of Alzheimer′s disease. In recent years, animal experiments showed that the sorbitol pathway also played some important roles in the reproductive system, such as spermatogenesis and sperm maturation, the inhibition of meiosis induced by hormones, and the regulation of mouse oocyte maturation. The sorbitol metabolism pathway and its research progress in reproduction were reviewed in this paper.

Key words: Sorbitol, Metabolic networks and pathways, Spermatogenesis, Oocyte, Oxidative stress, Diabetes complications