Emerging molecular methods for male infertility investigation

Male factors account for approximately 50% of reproductive pathology. Different disorders, including urogenital and endocrine system development abnormalities, lead to testicular and gametogenesis defects. Parallely, studies have reported that somatic and germ cell genome decay are a major cause of male infertility. It has been shown that in somatic karyotype, there is a higher incidence of chromosomal aberrations in infertile men than neonatal population and significant chromosome Y microdeletion or specific gene alterations in affected spermatogenesis. Karyotyping and FISH application at somatic and germ cell levels are no longer sufficient to investigate the potential contribution of genome disorders on male infertility. A wide range of molecular methods are required for better understanding of male infertility causes. Molecular omes and omics techniques have become a great tool to investigate male infertility from chromosome to protein. This review reports different molecular tests and methods that can be offered for male infertility investigation.