Polymorphisms in protamine 1 and 2 genes in asthenozoospermic men: A case-control study

Asthenozoospermia is one of the etiologies for male factor infertility. It was shown that any abnormality in protamines genes, reduction of protamines transcript and protamines deficiency may play a key role in asthenozoospermia.

The aim of the current study was the evaluation of protamine-1 and 2 genes (PRM1 and PRM2) polymorphisms in asthenozoospermic men.

In this case-control study, the samples were corresponded to asthenozoospermic specimens of infertile men. The normozoospermic samples were considered as the control group. DNA sequence amplification was performed using four PRM1 and PRM2 primers, designed from 5' to 3' flank regions. The human PRM1 and PRM2 gene sequences were screened in search of potential mutations in highly prevalent polymorphism regions in asthenozoospermia versus normozoospermia.

Totally, nine highly prevalent polymorphism regions between the forward and reverse primers were screened. Three of them corresponded to PRM1 and six to PRM2. The most prevalent polymorphism regions in PRM1 were related to 102G>T (rs35576928), 49C>T (rs140477029) and 139C>A (rs737008). In the PRM2, 6 highly prevalent polymorphisms regions were screened, including 248C>T (rs779337774), 401G>A (rs545828790), 288C>T (rs115686767), 288G>C (rs201933708), 373C>A (rs2070923), and 298G>C (rs1646022). The allele frequencies of three upper mentioned single nucleotide polymorphisms in asthenozoospermic men including 373C>A, 298G>C and 139C>A was higher than the control group.

Our findings indicated that the frequency of some altered genotypes in asthenozospermia was slightly higher than control group. We proposed more extensive studies to be sure that; these genotypes can precisely be related to diagnosis of asthenozoospermia, as the molecular markers.