Has clusterin gene a role in spermatogenesis?

Azar Mardi mamaghani,1 Seyed jalil hosseini,2,* Elham moslemi,3

1. Department of Biology, East Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
2. Department of Andrology, Reproductive Biomedicine Research Center, Royan Institute for Reproductive Biomedicine, ACECR,
3. Department of Biology, East Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Introduction

Azoospermia is a male disorder observed in 1% of the general population and in 10–15% of infertile men that is defined as the absence of spermatozoa in the ejaculate. a type of azoospermia called non-obstructive azoospermia is due to failure of spermatogenesis. several genes and proteins are responsible for this procedure such as clusterin gene. deficiency in the expression levels of such genes may lead to spermatogenesis failure. therefore, in order to understand the role of clusterin gene in spermatogenesis process, the expression of this gene was investigated in the testis tissue.

Methods

The study population included 42 infertile non-obstructive azoospermia men referred to royan institute. based on the results of their testicular biopsy, patients were categorized into two groups: tese+ (positive sperm retrieval) and tese-. the testicular tissue samples were obtained from the surgery for molecular analysis. the genomic rna was then extracted by trizol and converted to cdna. the gene expression was investigated by real-time pcr technique. the obtained data were analyzed using spss the18 software.

Results

The present study showed that the clusterin gene expression was significantly higher in tese+ group in comparison to tese- group (p =0.035).

Conclusion

According to the results of this limited study, the clusterin gene expression may have a role in spermatogenesis as its expression was significantly low in patients with no sperm even after tese surgery. by evaluating the expression of clusterin gene associated with its protein expression in the semen plasma in a larger population of non-obstructive azoospermia patients, more receivable information would be gained.

Keywords

Male infertility, non-obstructive azoospermia, sperm extraction, clusterin gene expression