tgifly mrna expression in human testis with spermatogenesis defects

background: hox genes are well-known transcription factors that play essential roles in directing embryonic development. tgifly is a y-linked homeobox gene that was originally identified by virtue of its expression in adult testis. the functions of tgifly in normal and abnormal development are unknown. methods: to investigate the potential roles of tgifly gene in the infertile males, a semi-nested reverse transcriptase po­ly­merase chain reaction (rt-pcr) was performed on the testicular samples of 110 patients with non-obstructive azoosper­mia. results: the expression of tgifly in 59(53.6%) out of 110 patients were undetectable. patients with different sper­mato­gene­sis defects failed to show the expected in tgifly gene expression as demonstrated in the normal testes. conclusion: our results indicate that tgifly is expressed in testis and could be associated with infertility in patients with azoo­spermia. tgifly may be required for the regulation of spermatogonial stem cell specification and proliferation that is es­sen­tial to the establishment and maintenance of spermatogenesis in human.