Molecular Human Reproduction, Vol. 9, No. 6, 331-336,
June 2003
© 2003 European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology
Article |
Decreased protamine-1 transcript levels in testes from infertile men
Submitted on January 15, 2003; accepted on February 23, 2003
1 Institute of Veterinary Anatomy, Histology and Embryology, 2 Institute of Pathology, 3 Institute of Veterinary Physiology, Department of Biomathematics, 4 Urological Clinic of the University, University of Giessen and 5 Urological Clinic of the University, Muenster, Germany
6 To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Institut für Veterinär-Anatomie, -Histologie und -Embryologie, Frankfurter Strasse 98, 35392 Giessen, Germany. e-mail: Klaus.Steger{at}vetmed.uni-giessen.de
Infertile men exhibit an aberrant protamine-1 (Prm1) to protamine-2 (Prm2) ratio at both the mRNA and protein level. We therefore investigated whether male infertility could be related to the amount of Prm1 and Prm2 mRNA by applying real time quantitative PCR following RNA extraction from routinely Bouin-fixed and paraffin-embedded testicular biopsies. Samples (n = 51) were normalized to the same amount and similar size of tissue sections. The threshold cycle (CT) representing a measure of the inital number of mRNA copies was significantly (P < 0.001) higher for Prm1, but not Prm2, and thus the amount of Prm1 mRNA was lower in men with at least qualitatively normal spermatogenesis (Prm1: 29.88 ± 2.99; Prm2: 34.28 ± 2.26) and impaired spermatogenesis (Prm1: 31.89 ± 2.54; Prm2: 35.59 ± 2.09) compared with men with obstructive azoospermia and quantitatively normal spermatogenesis (Prm1: 29.04 ± 1.02; Prm2: 34.91 ± 1.40). In addition, the Prm1 – Prm2 CT difference (
CT) was significantly (P < 0.001) decreased in these two groups. A negative correlation (r = –0.504; P < 0.001) was demonstrated between the score for efficiency of spermatogenesis and the CT for Prm1. These data suggest that the decreasing amount of Prm1 and, as a consequence, the aberrant Prm1:Prm2 mRNA ratio plays an important role for male infertility and may serve as a possible predictive factor for the outcome of ICSI.
Key words: infertile men/protamines/real time quantitative PCR/spermatogenesis
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