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The frequency of Y
chromosome microdeletions in infertile men from Chennai, a
South East Indian population and the effect of smoking,
drinking alcohol and chemical exposure on their frequencies
V. G. Abilash, Radha Saraswathy and K. M. Marimuthu
1Division of Biomolecules
and Genetics, School of Bio Sciences and Technology, VIT
University, Vellore 632014, Tamilnadu, India.
2Department
of Genetics, University of Madras, Chennai 600113, Tamilnadu,
India.
*Corresponding author.
E-mail:
r_saraswathy@yahoo.com. Tel: +91-416-2202390.
Accepted 13 July, 2010 |
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The aims of the study were
to estimate the frequency of Y chromosome microdeletion in
infertile men from a new geographical ethnic region,
Chennai, South East India, to explore the effect of smoking,
alcohol drinking, chemical exposure and cellular chromosomal
aberration on the frequency of infertility in 34 azoospermia
and 55 oligospermia patients. The frequency of Y chromosome
microdeletion was estimated using 12 STS markers and the
chromosomal aberrations were estimated in leukocyte
cultures. In azoospermia the frequency of microdeletions in
AZFa, AZFb, AZFc and AZFd were 27, 4, 56 and 13%
respectively. In oligospermia they were 33, 7, 48 and 12% in
the same order. These frequencies of Y chromosome
microdeletion are significantly higher than that of European
population. The chromosome aberrations per cell in
azoospermia and oligospermia were higher than that of the
control at the level of p > 0.001. The percentage of
microdeletion observed in unexposed azoospermia had 15%,
azoospermia smokers 22%, azoospermia smokers and alcoholics
25%; whereas the unexposed oligospermia had 7%, oligospermia
smokers 12%, oligospermia smokers and alcoholics 37%. It
seems that the etiology of male infertility may differ
between ethnic populations and smoking, alcohol drinking and
chemical exposure may have deleterious effect on human
fertility.
Key words:
Y chromosome microdeletion,
sequence-tagged site (STS),
chemical exposure, chromosomal aberrations, ethnic region.
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