Silber GENETICS OF MALE INFERTILITY

LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. The ART physician should understand the structure of the Y chromosome, why it harbors genes required for spermatogenesis, and why it so frequently has deletions which result in azoospermia and severe oligospermia. 2. The ART physician should understand the pitfalls in interpreting standard Y deletion testing, and be able to identify those STS markers which are robust and those which could represent polymorphisms or repeat sequences (false negative and false positive results). 3. The ART physician should have an understanding of the entire range of testis specific genes whose deletions or mutations are being missed (because of multiple repeats) by standard screening. 4. The ART physician should understand how to counsel infertile males undergoing ART regarding transmission of their infertility to ICSI offspring.