SEMG1 may be the candidate gene for idiopathic asthenozoospermia

Asthenozoospermia (AZS) is a major cause of male infertility, aetiology of which is reported to be related with gene mutation or deletion. However, studies on candidate genes for AZS are very scarce. In this study, we examined the gene expression profiles of asthenozoosperm. Gene expression profile analyses with microarray on spermatozoa specimens from 12 asthenozoosperm patients and 12 age-matched volunteers were performed; data analysis was performed with bioinformatics tools. Data analysis revealed that 1265 and 262 genes were significantly (P<0.05) and differently expressed (2-fold) between groups performed with GeneSpring and BRB-ArrayTools respectively. Of these differently expressed genes, 71 were identified as molecular signatures of asthenozoosperm, of which most involved in primary metabolic process and cellular metabolic process. Molecular signatures were filtered performed with NextBio, 21 genes were identified to be specially expressed in asthenozoosperm. We used Finding Associated Concepts with Text Analysis to match the specially expressed genes against the MEDLINE database and found SEMG1 and PGAP1 were related to male fertility. Validation of the microarray data of SEMG1 was carried out using real-time PCR. Our study demonstrated that SEMG1 was significantly changed in asthenozoosperm, which could be the candidate gene for the development of diagnostic marker and provided the opportunity to further illustrate the biological mechanisms of asthenozoosperm.