Metabolomics and Male Infertility

Background: It is estimated that 20% of couples are infertile. 50% of infertility is related to male factors. Despite the increase in understanding and treatment of male infertility, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Application of high-throughput technology can open a new door for treatment of infertile men. State-of-the-art technology metabolomics are becoming more popular for categorization of specific biomarker and development of diagnosis test. Seminal plasma can be used as an excellent parameter for noninvasive detection and diagnostic test associated with the male infertility. We have used the seminal plasma for metabolomics studies as a screening tool to diagnose male infertility and for biomarker discovery.Methods: We have used metabolomics fingerprinting and profiling for clinical diagnosis and potential biomarker finding.Result: Using metabolomics fingerprinting, we were able to classify idiopathic infertile men and asthenozoospermia men in different groups compared to fertile men. Via metabolomics profiling, we showed that metabolome of the seminal plasma of the non- obstructive azoospermia (NOA) patients can be used for detection of spermatogenesis, as a noninvasive technique. Furthermore, we identified 36 metabolites, which showed deregulation in these patients that can be used as potential biomarkers for detection of spermatogenesis.Conclusion: We have shown that metabolomics study of infertile men have come successfully out of discovery phase using the biological material seminal plasma. Now, we need to go to the test validation stage for further development of the technology.

کلیدواژه ها:

Metabolomics ، Seminal plasma ، Male infertility