BACKGROUND Azoospermia is the medical condition of a man not having any measurable level of sperm in his semen. Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) is a member of the glycoprotein hormone family that plays an important role in human reproduction because of its essential role in normal spermatogenesis. Various Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) have been reported within FSH receptor (FSHR) ge...

Background: Microdeletions of the long arm of the chromosome Y are the most common molecular genetic cause of severe infertility in men which affect three regions of AZFa, AZFb and AZFc (Azoospermia factor). These regions contain various genes involved in spermatogenesis. The effect of ethnicity on the patterns of Y chromosome microdeletions has not been extensively studied, particulary in Iran...

BACKGROUND TEX101 is a cell membrane protein exclusively expressed by testicular germ cells and shed into seminal plasma. We previously verified human TEX101 as a biomarker for the differential diagnosis of azoospermia, and developed a first-of-its-kind TEX101 ELISA. To demonstrate the clinical utility of TEX101, in this work we aimed at evaluating ELISA performance in a large population of fer...

The effect of in-vitro culture on the motility and morphology of fresh and frozen-thawed human testicular spermatozoa obtained from obstructive azoospermic patients and on the motility of testicular spermatozoa obtained from non-obstructive azoospermic patients was evaluated. The outcome of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) with fresh and frozen-thawed human testicular spermatozoa was stu...

Obstructive azoospermia (OA) is defined as the absence of spermatozoa in the ejaculate despite normal spermatogenesis, but either a mechanical blockage exists in the genital tract between the epididymis and the ejaculatory duct or the vasa deferentia are absent. A normal testicular biopsy is pathognomonic for obstruction, and a vasography should be indicated to identify the site of the obstruct...

Infertility is defined as the inability to conceive a child after one year of regular unprotected intercourse; it is a major health problem affecting about 10-15% of all couples. Infertility is due to a male factor in approximately 50% of cases. The human Y chromosome contains genes necessary for gonadal differentiation into a testis and genes for complete spermatogenesis. We examined the frequ...

Conventional sperm freezing methods perform best when freezing sperm samples containing at least hundreds of spermatozoa. In this severe male factor infertility case series, we examined the reproductive outcomes in 12 intracytoplasmic sperm injection cases where spermatozoa used were frozen in Cell Sleepers. Cell Sleepers are novel devices in which individual spermatozoa can be frozen in microd...