The Cytogenetic Basis of Human Infertility: A Review

Infertility resulting in humans has evoked considerable legal, medical and social interests. Infertility remains a major public health problem. Epidemiological studies reveal that genetic and environmental factors are responsible for infertility. As an estimate nearly 15-20% of couples have difficulty or is unable to conceive. Infertility is multi-factorial, but primarily it is because of male factor, female factor or a combination of both. Infertility can be hormonal, related to age, obesity, and infectious diseases, psychological or genetic. The genetic causes of infertility can be Y chromosome deletion, single gene disorder, multi-factorial causes and chromosomal abnormalities. The incidence of autosomal chromosome abnormalities is 1.1 to 7.2% in infertile men, about 3% in the azoospermia group and up to 10.2% in the oligozoospermia group. Genetic research on infertility aims to correlating clinical consequences and genotype.