Evaluation of expression level of DGCR8 gene in non-obstructive azoospermic patients in compare with obstructive azoospermic patients

Background: DGCR8 (DiGeorge syndrome chromosomal region 8) is critical for the processing of pri-miRNA into pre-miRNA. Several experiments of knock out mice model revealed the vital role of DGCR8 in mice infertility. DGCR8 is also an essential element in the meiotic and haploid phases of spermatogenesis and transition from round spermatids to mature spermatozoa. The purpose of this study was to examine changes in DGCR8 gene expression in OA and NOA patient.Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine changes in DGCR8 gene expression in OA and NOA patient.Materials and Methods: This research investigated the expression pattern of DGCR8 gene in testicular biopsies of 60 infertile men who had undergone testicular sperm extraction (TESE) procedure. Samples were classified into five groups according to histopahtology: obstructive azoospermia (OA, n=15), early maturation arrest (eMA, n=11), late maturation arrest (lMA, n=10) and Sertoli cell only syndrome (SCOS, n=12) hypospermatogenesis (HP, 13). Relative expression of DGCR8 gene was measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). One-way ANOVA analysis was used to determine inter-group differences in DGCR8 gene expression among the five histologic groups. Results: Experiments including the detection of mRNA showed a severe decrease of DGCR8 in samples with eMA and SCOS compared with samples with OA (p<0.05, One-way ANOVA analysis).Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that DGCR8 has a high expression in the germ cells, especially in the spermatocyte stage and possibly the early stages of miosis (mid/late pachytene) (p<0.05, One-way ANOVA analysis). Protein studies are necessary to determine the exact location of this gene expression and the separation of azoospermic subtypes, although the claim needs more samples to be confirmed.

Keywords:

DGCR8 , Spermatogenesis , Non-obstructive azoospermic