Skip Navigation


Mol. Hum. Reprod. Advance Access originally published online on June 15, 2006
Molecular Human Reproduction 2006 12(8):519-523; doi:10.1093/molehr/gal051
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
12/8/519    most recent
gal051v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (3)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Fernandes, A. T.
Right arrow Articles by Barros, A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Fernandes, A. T.
Right arrow Articles by Barros, A.
Social Bookmarking
 Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

DAZ gene copies: evidence of Y chromosome evolution

Ana Teresa Fernandes1,5, Susana Fernandes2, Rita Gonçalves1, Rosália Sá2,3, Paula Costa2, Alexandra Rosa1, Cristina Ferrás2, Mário Sousa2,3,4, António Brehm1 and Alberto Barros2,4

1Laboratory of Human Genetics, University of Madeira, Funchal, Madeira, 2Department of Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, 3Lab Cell Biology, ICBAS, University of Porto and 4Centre for Reproductive Genetics Alberto Barros, Porto, Portugal

5 To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Laboratory of Human Genetics, University of Madeira, Campus da Penteada, 9000-390 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. E-mail: atgf{at}uma.pt

The DAZ gene, a contributing factor in infertility, lies on the human Y chromosome’s AZFc region, whose deletion is a common cause of spermatogenic failure. Y chromosome binary polymorphisms on the non-recombining Y (NRY) region, believed to be a single occurrence on an evolutionary scale, were typed in a sample of fertile and infertile men with known DAZ backgrounds. The Y single-nucleotide polymorphisms (Y-SNPs) with low mutation rates are currently well characterized and permit the construction of a unique phylogeny of haplogroups. DAZ haplotypes were defined using single-nucleotide variant (SNV)/sequence tagged-site (STS) markers to distinguish between the four copies of the gene. The variation of 10 Y chromosome short tandem repeat (STRs) was used to determine the coalescence age of DAZ haplotypes in a comparable time frame similar to that of SNP haplogroups. An association between DAZ haplotypes and Y chromosome haplogroups was found, and our data show that the DAZ gene is not under selective constraints and its evolution depends only on the mutation rate. The same variants were common to fertile and infertile men, although partial DAZ deletions occurred only in infertile men, suggesting that those should only be used as a tool for infertility diagnosis when analysed in combination with haplogroup determinations.

Key words: DAZ/infertile/phylogeny/Y chromosome


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
Mol Hum ReprodHome page
P. Costa, R. Goncalves, C. Ferras, S. Fernandes, A. T. Fernandes, M. Sousa, and A. Barros
Identification of new breakpoints in AZFb and AZFc
Mol. Hum. Reprod., April 1, 2008; 14(4): 251 - 258.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]



Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.