Identification of a valuable gene network for the diagnosis and treatment of non-obstructive azoospermia: in-silico analyses – experimental research

Abstract

Introduction: Non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA) is an etiology of infertility in men. NOA may have various classifications; however, Hypogonadotropic hypogonadism can be regarded as a class of NOA associated with genetic factors. Former studies have shown that noncoding RNA (ncRNA) plays an essential role in NOA incidence, but few studies have been performed on the NOA-related ncRNA interaction network. In the current study, genes, NOA-related microRNA (miRNA), and circular RNA (circRNA) were found by bioinformatics methods to offer a new perspective on NOA treatment. Methods: The GnRHR-related protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was extracted by searching in “string-database.” GO, KEGG, and Enrichr databases were used to identify pathways, molecular function, and biological processing. Four Databases, including Target Scan, mirdip, mirmap, and mirwalk were performed to extract miRNAs. At last, the Circ2go, CircBase, and literature were used to identify CircRNAs and their genes. Results: The current study identified the four proteins associated with the GnRHR signaling; eight shared microRNAs that affect the expression of found proteins and 25 CircRNA and their origin genes that regulate the microRNAs’ function. Conclusion: The two miRNAs, hsa-miR-134-3p and hsa-miR-513C-3p, the three genes VCAN, NFATC3, and PRDM5, and their associated CircRNAs can perform as a valuable gene network in the diagnosis and treatment of NOA pathogenesis.