[Detection of Y chromosome microdeletions in patients with severe oligozoospermia and azoospermia].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the clinical significance of azoospermia factor (AZF) region deletion.

METHODS: Detection of the Y-link sequence tagged sites in AZF region was conducted by means of 2 multiplex polymerase chain reactions among 80 patients with severe oligozoospermia and 63 patients with azoospermia, totally 143.

RESULTS: Twenty-one cases of microdeletion were found among the 143 infertile patients with a prevalence of 14.7%. PCR analysis showed that deletion of the portions of Yq in 12 of the 62 idiopathic infertility patients, 3 being with severe oligozoospermia and 9 with azoospermia, and in 9 out of the 81 patients with non-idiopathic infertility. PCR analysis of 40 normal fertile men did not detect any abnormality. The results of the microdeletion showed that 1 patient had a microdeletion in the AZFa region with sY84 and sY86 (1/21, 4.8%), 2 patients presented a large deletion involving sY127 and sY143 from AZFb, and sY254 and sY255 from AZFc (1/21, 9.5%). Two patients had the deletions located in AZFb region (2/21, 9.5%), and 16 patients had a deletion on the AZFc region involving the DAZ (deleted in azoospermia) gene (16/21, 76.2%) Among the 21 infertile men 4 showed a testicular cytologic picture of maturation arrest, 6 patients had severe hypospermatogenesis, and 11 had Sertoli cell-only syndrome. There were not significant differences in location and extent of deletions between the patients with idiopathic infertility and those with non-idiopathic infertility.

CONCLUSION: It is recommended to carry out screening of microdeletion of Y chromosome among the patients with idiopathic and non-idiopathic infertility, especially the candidates for intracytoplasmic sperm injection.