P-198: Analysis of Expression Level of TEX12 Gene in Testis Tissues of Severe Oligozoospermic and Non-Obstructive Azoospermic Men

Background: During the first meiotic prophase, alignment and synapsis of the homologous chromosomes are mediated by the synaptonemal complex. Incorrect assembly of the synaptonemal complex leads to impaired recombination and cell death, which in humans, causes infertility in males. Testis-expressed gene 12 (TEX12) is a germ cell-specific gene that is located on the chromosome 11 (11q22) in humans.TEX12 is exclusively expressed in mice and humans testis. TEX12 protein is small (14 kDa) and does not contain any known protein domains. TEX12 is a component of the central element structure of the synaptonemal complex required for propagation of synapses and maturation of early recombination events into crossovers. The absence of TEX12 results in a disrupted central element and only partial synapsis of the meiotic chromosomes, which could have consequences for the progression of meiotic recombination and results in male infertility. Materials and Methods: Testis tissue samples were obtained from 10 patients with severe oligozoospermia and 10 patients with non-obstructive azoospermia who were referred to the Royan institute. Total RNA was extracted and cDNA was synthesized. Quantitative real-time RTPCR was performed using Power SYBR Green kit. Results: Normalizing the relative amount of TEX12 transcript by the amount of GAPDH transcript in the same sample, indicated that expression of TEX12 in the testis samples of patients with non-obstructive azoospermia(arrested in spermatosytic level) is significantly reduced as compared with oligozoospermic patients (p value= 0.05). Conclusion: According to the results, we can conclude that TEX12 expression levels are essential for normal spermatogenesis and deficiency in this gene can cause spermatogenic failure and infertility in men.