MicroRNA profiling in spermatozoa of men with unexplained asthenozoospermia

Asthenozoospermia (AZS) which is characterised by decreased sperm motility is one of the main causes of male infertility. Recent studies demonstrated altered microRNAs (miRNAs) in total semen, seminal plasma and spermatozoa of asthenozoospermic men. In line with these studies, it was aimed to evaluate the miRNA expression profile in spermatozoa of unexplained asthenozoospermic men. Thirty-nine cases with idiopathic AZS and 35 fertile and healthy men as control were included. After total RNA extraction from spermatozoa, high-throughput sequencing technology was employed to display miRNA profiles in spermatozoa samples pooled from AZS cases and healthy controls. Relative quantification by real-time PCR was performed to validate RNA-seq results. SNORD48 was used as normaliser gene, and fold change was calculated by 2^-ΔΔCt method. Profiling results showed that 18 altered miRNAs in AZS men in comparison to controls. Subsequently, seven miRNAs were selected to validate by RT-PCR that showed MiR-888-3p significantly overexpressed in AZS cases (p = 0.014) in comparison with controls. It seems upregulation of miR-888-3p was associated with idiopathic AZS. This finding paves the way to the future investigation on the actual molecular role of miR-888-3p in aetiology of AZS.