ABSTRACT
We determined the prevalence of Y chromosome deletions in a population of 60 Brazilian nonobstructive azoospermic and severely oligozoospermic men. PCR-based screening of microdeletions was performed on lymphocyte DNA for the presence of 14 sequence-tagged sites (STS) located in the azoospermic factor (AZF) on the Yq chromosome. All STS were amplified efficiently in samples from 12 fertile men tested, but failed to be amplified in samples from fertile women, indicating the specificity of PCR conditions for Yq screening. Overall, 4 of the 60 infertile patients tested (6.7 percent) exhibited deletion of the Y chromosome, 2 of them being severely oligozoospermic patients (P10 and P32) and 2 azoospermic men (patients P47 and P57). Patients P47 and P57 presented larger deletions in the AZFa, AZFb and AZFc subregions, with apparent loss of Yq material evidenced by karyotype analysis. Patients P10 and P32 presented deletions confined to the AZFc region, involving the DAZ locus. Male relatives of patients P10 and P32 had no Y chromosome deletions and presented a normal karyotype, suggesting a de novo status of the deletions found. Our data add to the growing literature showing that microdeletions of the Y chromosome can be the cause of male idiopathic infertility
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Female , Adult , Middle Aged , Chromosome Deletion , Infertility, Male , Y Chromosome , Oligospermia , Polymerase Chain Reaction , Prevalence , Sequence Tagged Sites , Severity of Illness IndexABSTRACT
Age-related changes in the neuronal uptake of labelled noradrenaline were analyzed in transversally sectioned portions of 4-, 12-and 20-month old rat vas deferens. Uptake was a saturable process apparently following the Michaelis-Menten equation. By determining the values of Km and Vmax, it was possible to conclude that neuronal uptake does not change with age in the epididymal portion of the vas deferens and is reduced in the prostatic portion of 20-month old rats