Associaton of androgen receptor CAG polymorphism with idiopathic male infertility

Background: CAG repeats polymorphism in the androgen receptor (AR) gene may change the risk of male infertility.Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the association of AR-CAG repeats with male infertility.Materials and Methods: In a case-control study, 150 fertile and 150 idiopathic infertile men were included. After blood sample collection and genomic DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method with following the electrophoresis on polyacrylamide gel was used for AR-CAG genotyping.Results: Our case-control study revealed that there is a significant association between an increase in the length of AR-CAG polymorphism and male infertility (p<0.01). Also, there were similar significant associations for azoospermia (p<0.05), asthenozoospermia (p<0.05) and teratozoospermia (p<0.01) subgroups.Conclusion: Our results elucidate that long stretches of CAG repeat may lead to AR dysfunction and this may contribute to male infertility especially in the Caucasian population.

Keywords:

Male infertility , Androgen receptor , CAG repeat , Gene polymorphism , Genetic association