Infertility network and hub genes for nonobstructive azoospermia utilizing integrative analysis

Non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA) is the most severe form of male infertility owing to the absence of sperm during ejaculation as a result of failed spermatogenesis. The molecular mechanisms of NOA have not been well studied. Here, we revealed the dysregulated differentially expressed genes in NOA and related signaling pathways or biological processes. Cluster features of biological processes include spermatogenesis, fertilization, cilium movement, penetration of zona pellucida, sperm chromatin condensation, and being significantly enriched metabolic pathways in proximal tubule bicarbonate reclamation, aldosterone synthesis and secretion, glycolysis and glycogenesis pathways in NOA using Gene Ontology analysis and pathway enrichment analysis. The NOA gene co-expression network was constructed by weighted gene co-expression network analysis to identify the hub genes (CHD5 and SPTBN2). In addition, we used another Gene Expression Omnibus dataset (GSE45887) to validate these hub genes. Furthermore, we used the Seurat package to classify testicular tissue cells from NOA patients and to characterize the differential expression of hub genes in different cell types from different adult males based on the scRNA-seq dataset (GSE106487). These results provide new insights into the pathogenesis of NOA. Of particular note, CHD5 and SPTBN2 may be potential biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of NOA.