Investigation of changes in expression level of XRCC2 gene in obstructive azoospermia and nonobstructive azoospermia patients

Background: Infertility is one of the major problems in the world. Identifying genes that play a biomarker and diagnostic role can be very important. X-ray Repair Cross Complementing 2 (XRCC2) gene is involved in the homologous recombination repair (HRR) pathway of double-stranded DNA, thought to repair chromosomal fragmentation, translocations and deletions, and plays an essential role in gametogenesis. A XRCC2 recessive mutation causing infertility in human. Also knockout of Xrcc2 in mice has shown embryonic lethality, meiotic arrest and infertility in male.Objective: The aim of this experiment was to evaluate variation in XRCC2 gene expression in OA and NOA patients.Materials and Methods: In the present study, we aim to evaluate expression levels of the XRCC2 gene, in the testicular biopsy samples obtained from men with various types of NOA including obstructive azoospermia (OA, n=8), maturation arrest (MA, n=10), Sertoli cell only syndrome (SCOS, n=11) and hypospermatogenesis (HP, 9). The relative expression of XRCC2 gene was measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Kruskal-Wallis test was used to determine inter-group differences in XRCC2 gene expression among the four histologic groups.Results: Examination consists of the detection of mRNA uncovered a severe decrease of XRCC2 in samples with MA and HP compared with samples with OA (p<0.05).Conclusion: The finding of this study shows that XRCC2 has an expression in the germ cells in the spermatocyte stage and possibly in meiosis phase and post- meiotic stages (p<0.05). This result suggesting that a deficient expression of XRCC2 might be reflecting and/or contributing to round spermatid maturation arrest. And in order for these statements to be finalized, there is a need for protein measurements and more samples.

کلیدواژه ها:

XRCC2 ، Obstructive azoospermia ، nonobstructive azoospermia