MicroRNA profiling in spermatozoa of men with unexplained asthenozoospermia

Abstract

Asthenozoospermia (AZS) which is characterised by decreased sperm motility is one of the main causes of male infertility. Recent studies demonstrated altered microRNAs (miRNAs) in total semen, seminal plasma and spermatozoa of asthenozoospermic men. In line with these studies, it was aimed to evaluate the miRNA expression profile in spermatozoa of unexplained asthenozoospermic men. Thirty‐nine cases with idiopathic AZS and 35 fertile and healthy men as control were included. After total RNA extraction from spermatozoa, high‐throughput sequencing technology was employed to display miRNA profiles in spermatozoa samples pooled from AZS cases and healthy controls. Relative quantification by real‐time PCR was performed to validate RNA‐seq results. SNORD48 was used as normaliser gene, and fold change was calculated by 2−ΔΔCt method. Profiling results showed that 18 altered miRNAs in AZS men in comparison to controls. Subsequently, seven miRNAs were selected to validate by RT‐PCR that showed MiR‐888‐3p significantly overexpressed in AZS cases (p = 0.014) in comparison with controls. It seems upregulation of miR‐888‐3p was associated with idiopathic AZS. This finding paves the way to the future investigation on the actual molecular role of miR‐888‐3p in aetiology of AZS.

Sperm miR‐15a and miR‐29b are associated with bull fertility

“…Apoptosis regulates spermatogenesis (Wang, Li, Gong, Zhao, & Wu, ) and spontaneous programmed cell death in mature spermatozoa (Aitken & Baker, ; Engel, Springsguth, & Grunewald, ). Through analysis of miRNAs in sperm samples, researchers demonstrated their expression patterns in spermatozoa in different mammals including human (Heidary, Zaki‐Dizaji, Saliminejad, & Khorram Khorshid, ; Krawetz et al, ), boar (Godia et al, ), mouse (Hutcheon et al, ) and bull (Fagerlind et al, ). However, changes in miRNA levels and the expression of target genes of those miRNAs controlling apoptosis in bull spermatozoa remain poorly understood.…”

CircRNA Role and circRNA-Dependent Network (ceRNET) in Asthenozoospermia

“…This strategy has been deeply applied to unveil several other classes of non-coding RNAs (11). Among them, microRNAs (miRNAs) have an altered expression in semen, sperm, and testicular biopsy samples of infertile men (12,13). Long non-coding RNAs show a similar behavior, changing their expression as a consequence of altered sperm functions (14).…”

The influence of l ‐carnitine on the expression of miRNAs in asthenospermia spermatozoa and the network regulation of the associated molecules

“…MiRNAs are a class of small, non‐protein‐coding RNAs that regulate gene expression at the translational level and play critical regulatory roles in a wide range of physiological and pathological events, including developmental timing, signal transduction, cell growth and death (Hansen et al, ). Numerous miRNAs have been identified to be associated with male infertility in normal and disease states, such as oligoasthenozoospermia (Abu‐Halima et al, ), asthenospermia (Heidary et al, ; Wang et al, ) and other reproductive system diseases. MiRNAs involved in normal spermatogenesis are expressed in specific cells during male germ cell differentiation (Kotaja, ).…”

“…Approximately 15% of couples of reproductive age are incapable of conceiving within 12 months of unprotected sex, and 50% of these cases are caused by male infertility (Heidary, Zaki‐Dizaji, Saliminejad, & Khorram Khorshid, ). Asthenospermia is an important reason for male infertility.…”