BackgroundMale infertility is a complex disorder caused by genetic, developmental, endocrine, or environmental factors as well as unknown etiology. Polymorphisms in the follicle stimulating hormone beta subunit (FSHB) (rs10835638, c.-211G > T) and follicle stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR) (rs1394205, c.-29G > A; rs6165, c.919A > G; rs6166, c.2039 A > G) genes might disturb normal spermatogenesis and affect male reproductive ability.MethodsTo further ascertain the aforementioned effects, we conducted a case-control study of 255 infertile men and 340 fertile controls from South China using the Mass ARRAY method, which was analyzed by the t-tests and logistic regression analysis using SPSS for Windows 14.0. In addition, a meta-analysis was performed by combining our results with previous reports using STATA 12.0.ResultsIn the FSHB or FSHR gene single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) evaluation, no statistically-significant difference was found in the frequency of allelic variants or in genotype distribution between cases and controls. However, a significant association for the comparison of GAA (P: 0.022, OR: 0.63, 95%CI: 0.43–0.94) was seen between the oligozoospermia and controls in haplotype analysis of rs1394205/rs6165/rs6166. In the meta-analysis, rs6165G allele and rs6166 GG genotype were associated with increased risk of the male infertility.ConclusionsThis study suggested that FSHR GAA haplotype would exert protective effects against male sterility, which indicated that the combination of three SNP genotypes of FSHR was predicted to have a much stronger impact than either one alone. Then in the meta-analysis, a significant association was seen between FSHR rs6165, rs6166 polymorphisms and male infertility. In terms of male infertility with multifactorial etiology, further studies with larger sample sizes and different ethnic backgrounds or other risk factors are warranted to clarify the potential role of FSHB and FSHR polymorphisms in the pathogenesis of male infertility.
Dear Editor, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has infected tens of millions of people worldwide since its pandemic. 1 No specific therapeutic agents or vaccines for COVID-19 are available. Convalescent plasma refers to plasma separated from an individual after the infection has subsided and the antibody has developed. 2-5 Convalescent plasma therapy (CPT), a classic adaptive immunotherapy, has been successfully used for the prevention and treatment of many infectious diseases for more than one century. Over the past two decades, it was successfully used in the treatment of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) from 2012 to 2017 with satisfactory efficacy and safety. CPT is one of the promising treatment methods and is favored by more and more researchers. 2-10 However, the clinical efficacy and safety of CPT in COVID-19 remains unclear. We performed a retrospective observational study by propensity score matching analysis (PSM) and metaanalysis estimates the clinical efficacy and security of CPT and COVID-19, which will help inform clinical management of COVID-19 infection. A total of 326 participants (163 cases group with CPT and 163 matched controls group with the standard treatment) diagnosed as COVID-19 were included in the clinical study, of which 142 patients (43.56%) were male. The mean age for all patients was 64.07 ± 13.37 years, and the majority (65.64%) of them was more than 60 years old. Of all patients, 79 (48.47%) cases and 77 (47.24%) controls had a history of basic diseases, including hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, and tumor. Interestingly, we found that days of hospital stay in case with CPT groups were significantly higher than matched control group (P < 0.0001). Possible explanation is that most of patients in the CPT treatment group condition This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The antioxidant defense system protects DNA from the damaging effects of oxidative stress and is hypothesized to be associated with an increased risk of male infertility. Polymorphisms in antioxidant genes and the gene-gene interactions associated with the antioxidant system may increase the potential risk of male infertility. In the present case-controlled study, the individual link between seven gene polymorphisms (NQO1 rs1800566, SOD2 rs4880, GSTM3 rs1571858, rs3814309, rs7483, GSTM5 rs11807 and GSTP1 rs1695) and the risk of male infertility was investigated. A total of 248 idiopathic infertility patients and 310 fertile controls were selected, and genotyping was performed using the Mass ARRAY platform. There were no significant associations between the seven polymorphisms and risk of male infertility. However, the analysis of gene-gene interactions showed a decreased risk of male infertility in GSTM3 rs3814309/NQO1 rs1800566 [CC x CT/TT; odds ratio (OR)=0.56, 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.34-0.92; P=0.022), and a significant association between a gene-gene interaction in GSTM3 rs1571858/NQO1 rs1800566 and azoospermia (AG/GG x CC; OR=3.84, 95% CI=1.25-11.81; P=0.019).
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