Objective: To investigate the prevalence and subtypes of microdeletions in azoospermia factor (AZF) region in infertile men from Sichuan in order to correlate genotypes with phenotypes.
Methods: Multiplex-PCR was used to detect sequence tagged sites (STS) of AZF microdeletions in 1011 infertile men including 713 cases of non-obstructive azoospermia and 298 cases of severe oligospermia.
Results: The overall prevalence of microdeletions was 10.48% (106/1011), and the deletion rates were 11.08% (79/713) in non-obstructive azoospermia and 9.06% (27/298) in severe oligospermia. Complete AZFa or AZFb deletions were associated with azoospermia, whereas AZFc deletion (60.38%) was the most frequent deletion. The deletions were associated with variable spermatogenic phenotypes, and 37.50% of the patients with a deletion had sperms in the ejaculate. A mild decline in sperm concentration was found in two cases with partial AZFb deletion and one case with partial AZFb-c deletion.
Conclusion: Deletions of the AZFc region were most commonly found in our patients. All cases with complete AZFa or AZFb deletions and a proportion of cases with AZFc deletion were associated with azoospermia. Our study has provided more insight into the genotype-phenotype correlation, and confirmed that Yq microdeletion screening has a significant value for the diagnosis for male infertility.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
---|---|
http://dx.doi.org/10.3760/cma.j.issn.1003-9406.2012.02.015 | DOI Listing |
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!