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Introduction: The reason of infertility can have a direct influence on the plan and outcome of management. In this paper we intend to show the effect of tuberculosis (TB) history on female infertility among infertile couples attending to Rooyan infertility management center. Materials and methods: In this case-control study our cases were those who were diagnosed as infertile female and controls were those women whose husbands were infertile due to some male factor. We used logestic regression for analyzing the association of history of Tuberculosis and female infertility with attributable risk estimation. Results: 308 cases were compared to 314 controls. Considering the odds ratio and its 95% confidence interval, there was a significant difference between the history of TB and infertility (OR=4.7, 95% CI: 1.01-29.91). The attributable risk of TB for female infertility was 0.023±0.01 (which is significant at 5% level). Conclusion: These figures show that at least 2% of female infertility can be prevented by prevention and proper treatment of tuberculosis.

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Background: There is growing evidence that damage to spermatozoa by reactive oxygen species (ROS) plays a key role in male infertility. This study was done to review the role of oxidative stress in male infertility. Materials and Methods: In this review article, PubMed, Scopus, and EBSCO-CINAHL databases were used for finding the relevant studies. Results: Under physiological conditions, a certain level of ROS is necessary for normal sperm function. However, an excessive level of ROS produced by leucocytes and immature sperms can cause damages to spermatozoa. Oxidative stress develops when there is an imbalance between ROS production and antioxidant defense system in male reproductive tract. High levels of ROS have been detected in the semen samples of 25-40% of infertile men. Oxidative stress can induce detrimental effects on standard seminal parameters and fertilizing capacity of spermatozoa. Conclusion: Oxidative stress can induce impaired sperm function that results in poor pregnancy rate in natural conditions and assisted reproduction.

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Background: Human &beta-defensin 126 (12kDa) is a small cationic glycoprotein that is highly rich of cysteine. DEFB126 gene is located on the subtelomeric end of 20p1.3 in human. High expression of this protein is reported in epididymis. This polypeptide coats the plasma membrane of sperm during epididy‌mal transit. It is likely that &beta -defensin 126 might have role in unexplained male infertility since it involves in sperm maturation and capacitation. The current research designed to investigate if there is relation between &beta-defensin 126 gene mutation and unexplained male infertility.

Materials and Methods: In this case-control study we followed a two cytosine nucleotides deletion of &beta-defensin 126 gene in 35 Iranian men with unexplained infertility and 40 fertile men with normal spermogeram as control group. Standard PCR, SSCP(Single strand conformational polymorphism), and sequencing were used to detect genetic alteration of &beta-defensin 126. ELISA was performed for the assessment of the protein expression on sperm cells.

Results: Analysis of genetic data revealed 28.6% homozygote deletion in unexplained infertile men while this deletion was detected in 7.5% of controls. The deletion frequency was statistically higher in infertile patients than normal control group (p<0.05). The protein expression was less in men with del/del genotype compare to the other genotypes (p<0.005).

Conclusion: Our study shows that this common sequence variation of &beta-defensin 126 takes part in impairment of male reproductive function. Consequently, men with the del/del genotype are significantly less fertile than men who carry the wild type allele.

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Background: Infertility is a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. Male infertility affecting 15% of couples. Environmental and genetic factors are involved in male infertility. Paraoxonase (PON) is an antioxidant enzyme which plays an important role in various diseases and is associated with oxidative stress and lipid metabolism. The PON gene family consists of 3 genes, PON1, PON2, and PON3, that located on the long arm of chromosome 7. In this study, the association of PON1 gene polymorphism at position 192 Q/R with idiopathic male infertility were investigated.

Materials and Methods: Blood Samples were collected from 120 patients diagnosed with idiopathic male infertility and 124 control subjects, and genotyped by PCR-RFLP method. To estimate the association between genotype and allele frequencies in cases and controls, P-values were assessed by Chi-square (&chi2) analysis.

Results: We observed a significant difference in genotype distributions of PON1 192 Q/R polymorphism between patients and controls (P= 0.0001). Our findings revealed individuals with the variant QR and RR had a significant decrease risk of idiopathic male infertility (RR: OR= 0.057, 95%CI=0.003-1.08, P= 0.05. QR: OR= 0.288, 95%CI= 0.132-0.394, P= 0.0001).

Conclusion: Our data indicate that the PON1 192 Q/R polymorphism maybe associated with decreased risk of idiopathic male infertility. Although more studies should be considered with larger number of patient and control subjects to confirm our results.

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Background: Nowadays, the decline in birth rate is one of the most important social problems in developing societies. Infertility is defined as a failure to conceive in a couple trying to reproduce after one year of regular intercourse without contraception. Leptin have been implicated in maintaining normal female reproductive functions, including lactation, folliculogenesis, ovarian steroidogenesis, the maintenance of mammary gland morphology, the development of dominant follicles and oocytes, the maturation of the uterus endometrium, and menstrual cycle regulation. Sinyle-nucleotide polymorphism T>C found in exon 3 leads to substitution of Arg>Trp at codon 1.5 (R105W). In this case-control study, we aimed to evaluate the association of this polymorphism and the risk of female infertility in the population of Guilan.

Materials and Methods: Blood Samples were collected from 86 patients diagnosed with female infertility and 60 control subjects, and genotyped by allele-specific PCR (AS-PCR). To estimate the association between genotype and allele frequencies in cases and controls, Chi-Square analysis was used.

Results: Analysis revealed no significant differences were found in genotype and allele distributions of LEP Arg105Trp between infertility cases and controls (p=0.21, p=0.2) in this population.

Conclusion: Our findings indicated no significant association between the Arg105Trp polymorphism and female infertility risk (p=0.21). While, more studies are needed to confirm the results.

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  Background: Approximately, 50% of male infertility causes have remained unknown. It seems that genetic disorders may lead to many cases of idiopathic infertility. XRCC1 ( X-ray Repair Cross Complementing group 1) acts as a scaffolding protein in the base excision repair (BER) and single strand break repair (SSBR). Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) of XRCC1 may influence DNA repair capacity. Thus, they had been considered as a risk factor for infertility. XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphism was located on p rotected domain , BRCT1 . The aim of this study was to explore the p ossibility of association between XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphism and susceptibility to idiopathic male infertility.

  Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, the genotype and allele frequencies of Arg399Gln polymorphism were examined by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) on a Guilanian population consisting of 144 men with idiopathic infertility and 166 healthy men. Statistical analysis was performed using the MedCalc 12 software.

  Results: According to our results, compared with Arg/Arg genotype, the Arg/Gln , Gln/Gln and Arg/Gln + Gln/Gln genotypes showed a significant association with an increased risk of idiopathic male infertility ( OR=4.19 95%CI 2.37-7.41, p<0.0001 ), (OR=3.42 95%CI 1.50-7.81, p<0.0034), (OR=4.06 95%CI 2.32-7.09, P<0.0001) , respectively. In addition, the Gln allele frequency in patients was significantly higher than that in controls(p=0.0004).

  Conclusion: In total, Arg399Gln polymorphism of XRCC1 gene can be associated with male infertility and Gln allele might be a risk factor of idiopathic male infertility in in this sample population. Larger population and different ethnicities should be studied to achieve a definitive conclusion.

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