A Molecular Study of Azoospermia & Sever Oligospermia in a Sample of Infertile Males Al-Anbar Governorate

Abstract

ABSTRACT Infertility is one of the major public health problems in the Arab world, as it affects about 15% of couples seeking children. in 50% of these cases, the male partner is responsible for infertility . Y microdeletions in the azoospermia factor (AZF) region are known to be associated with spermatogenetic failure. In the current study, the aim was to determine the molecular background of male infertility using tag sequence tagged site (STS) associated with Azoospermia cases . We evaluated the incidence of Y chromosome microdeletions in (100) Iraqi infertile male patients with primary idiopathic male infertility and 50 fertile males (controls) by polymerase chain reaction using 11 STSs in the azoospermia factor (AZF) region. Of the 100 infertile men, Y-chromosome Microdeletion in the AZFa , AZFb and AZFc regions were detected in (64%)cases. The pathological significance of these deletions is not clear yet or most probably belongs to environmental pollution by depleted uranium used by collision forces in Al-Anbar governorate .