1. Androgen receptor gene CAG repeats length in fertile and infertile Tunisian men
- Author
-
Hammadi Ayadi, Ali Bahloul, Leila Ammar-Keskes, Amel Boulila, Hassen Hadj-Kacem, and Lobna Hadj-Kacem
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,Infertility ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Tunisia ,DNA Mutational Analysis ,Biology ,Polymerase Chain Reaction ,law.invention ,Male infertility ,Trinucleotide Repeats ,law ,Polymorphism (computer science) ,Internal medicine ,Genetics ,medicine ,Humans ,Allele ,Allele frequency ,Alleles ,Infertility, Male ,Polymerase chain reaction ,Sperm Count ,Oligospermia ,medicine.disease ,Hormones ,Androgen receptor ,Endocrinology ,Receptors, Androgen ,Spermatogenesis - Abstract
Several reports implicated a relation between the trinucleotide (CAG) repeat length in the androgen receptor (AR) gene and male infertility. But such result was not reproduced in others. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the number of (CAG) repeats in the AR gene among two groups of infertile (n = 129) and fertile Tunisian men (n = 98), using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) targeting the AR CAG repeat tract, followed by electrophoresis on polyacrylamide gel (6%). For statistical analysis we used Student, Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) and chi(2)-tests. Significance was reached when P < 0.05. No statistically significant difference in the mean length of the CAG repeat was found between infertile and control groups (P = 0.47). Moreover, using KS test, we have not found a difference in the distribution of allele frequencies between infertile and controls (D(obs) = 0.046 < D(crit) = 0.180). We also did not found a statistically significant relationship between the size of the CAG repeat and impaired sperm production in Tunisian population. Our results may be attributed to the high probability that infertile males may represent a heterogeneous group with respect to the causes of defective spermatogenesis.
- Published
- 2004
- Full Text
- View/download PDF