Association between androgen receptor gene CAG trinucleotide repeat length and testicular histology in older men
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Published on: December 8, 2021
Mbarka Dakouane-Giudicelli1, Beatrice Legrand, Marianne Bergere
1Service Histologie Embryologie Biologie de la Reproduction-Cytogénétique, Saint-Quentin, France. dakouane@hotmail.com
Objective:
To determine whether the size of CAG repeat in exon 1 of the androgen receptor (AR) gene is related to impaired spermatogenesis in older men.
Design:
Study of two groups of older men: one with preserved spermatogenesis and the other with arrested spermatogenesis.
Setting:
University teaching hospital.
Patient(S):
Twenty-eight men aged from 53 to 102 years.
Intervention(S):
The DNA fragment encoding the AR polyglutamine tract was amplified from DNA of testis tissue.
Main Outcome Measure(S):
The size of the CAG repeat was evaluated by using fluorescent-labeled polymerase chain reaction performed on an ABI Prism 377 DNA sequencer followed by automated analysis with Genscan 3.1.2 software.
Result(S):
Mean CAG repeat length was 22.76 +/- 3 in the group of 13 aged men with preserved spermatogenesis and 21.86 +/- 2.23 in the group of 15 aged men with arrested spermatogenesis.
Conclusion(S):
Impaired spermatogenesis in elderly men does not seem to be correlated with the AR gene CAG repeat length, which therefore does not appear to be a risk factor for impaired spermatogenesis in older men.
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