Assessing spermatozoal small ribonucleic acids and their relationship to blastocyst development in idiopathic infertile males

Matthew Hamilton; Stewart Russell; Karen Menezes; Sergey I Moskovtsev; Clifford Librach

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-24568-w

Assessing spermatozoal small ribonucleic acids and their relationship to blastocyst development in idiopathic infertile males

Sci Rep. 2022 Nov 21;12(1):20010. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-24568-w.

Authors

Matthew Hamilton¹, Stewart Russell², Karen Menezes¹, Sergey I Moskovtsev^{1

3}, Clifford Librach^{1

4

5

6}

Affiliations

¹ CReATe Fertility Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada.
² CReATe Fertility Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada. stewart@createivf.com.
³ Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁴ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁵ Department of Physiology and Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁶ Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada.

Abstract

Clinical testing strategies for diagnosing male factor infertility are limited. A deeper analysis of spermatozoa-derived factors could potentially diagnose some cases of 'unexplained infertility'. Spermatozoa carry a rich and dynamic profile of small RNAs, which have demonstrated potential developmental importance and association with fertility status. We used next-generation sequencing to correlate sperm small RNA profiles of normozoospermic males (n = 54) with differing blastocyst development rates, when using young donor oocytes. While ribosomal RNAs accounted for the highest number of sequencing reads, transfer RNA fragments of tRNA^Gly/GCC and tRNA^Val-CAC were the most abundant sequences across all sperm samples. A total of 324 small RNAs were differentially expressed between samples with high (n = 18) and low (n = 14) blastocyst rates (p-adj < 0.05). Ninety three miRNAs were differentially expressed between these groups (p-adj < 0.05). Differentially expressed transfer RNA fragments included: 5'-tRF-Asp-GTC; 5'-tRF-Phe-GAA; and 3'-tRF-Ser-GCA. Differentially expressed miRNAs included: let-7f-2-5p; miR-4755-3p; and miR-92a-3p. This study provides the foundation on which to validate a clinical panel of fertility-related sperm small RNAs, as well as to pursue potential mechanisms through which they alter blastocyst development.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Blastocyst
Humans
Infertility, Male* / genetics
Male
MicroRNAs* / genetics
RNA, Transfer / genetics
Semen

Substances

MicroRNAs
RNA, Transfer