Y chromosome microdeletions in Iranian infertile men.

Introduction: The human Y chromosome contains genes that are essential for spermatogenesis specially those that are located on Yq11.23 in a rejoin called azoospermia factor locus (AZF). Deletions in these genes may result in nonobstructive azoospermia and oligozoospermia. Widely different frequencies of such deletions (0-55%) have been reported from different populations. The aim of this study was to establish the prevalence of microdeletions on the Y chromosome in infertile Iranian males with azoospermia. Materials/Methods: Multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was applied using several sequence-tagged site (STS) primer sets, in order to determine Y chromosome microdeletions in 75 infertile males. Results: Microdeletions in AZFa, AZFb and AZFc (DAZ gene) regions were detected in 10 of the 75 (13.3%) infertile males with normal karyotypes, which seems to be one of the greatest reported frequencies. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that knowing the genetic cause for male infertility will be informative before performing intracytoplasmic sperm injection or testicular sperm extraction treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]