Background: Heat-shock protein A2 (HspA2) is a testisspecific member of the HSP70 family known to play a critical role in spermatogenic cell differentiation. HspA2 is correlated with sperm maturity, function and fertility, and diminished expression of HspA2 results in abnormal sperm maturity and infertility. The aim of this study was to compare expression of HspA2 in fertile and infertile indiv...

Background: Heat-shock protein A2 (HspA2) is a testis-specific member of the HSP70 family known to play a critical role in spermatogenic cell differentiation. HSPA2 is correlated with sperm maturity, function and fertility, and diminished expression of HSPA2 results in abnormal sperm maturity and infertility. The aim of this study was to assess maturity of ejaculated spermatozoa via comparing p...

One of the most common lesions present in the spermatozoa of human infertility patients is an idiopathic failure of sperm-egg recognition. Although this unique cellular interaction can now be readily by-passed by assisted reproductive strategies such as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), recent large-scale epidemiological studies have encouraged the cautious use of this technology and hig...

BACKGROUND NASP (Nuclear Autoantigenic Sperm Protein) is a histone chaperone that is present in all dividing cells. NASP has two splice variants: tNASP and sNASP. Only cancer, germ, transformed, and embryonic cells have a high level of expression of the tNASP splice variant. We examined the consequences of tNASP depletion for prostate cancer PC-3 cells. METHODS tNASP was depleted from prostat...

background: heat shock protein a2 (hspa2) is correlated with sperm maturity and function. therefore, dysfunctional expression of this gene results in abnormal spermatogenesis. on the other hand, dna damage in spermatozoa is considered to be an important cause of male infertility, and the presence of sperm with dna fragmentation and chromatin abnormalities in human ejaculates is well documented,...

Background Heat shock protein A2 (HSPA2) is correlated with sperm maturity and function. Therefore, dysfunctional expression of this gene results in abnormal spermatogenesis. On the other hand, DNA damage in spermatozoa is considered to be an important cause of male infertility, and the presence of sperm with DNA fragmentation and chromatin abnormalities in human ejaculates is well documented, ...

Background: Varicocele is a major cause of male infertility, as it may impair spermatogenesis through several distinct pathophysiological mechanisms including hypoxia, renal-adrenal reflux, hormonal dysfunction, autoimmunity, oxidative stress and hyperthermia. HSP70s are members of the heat shock protein (HSP) family, which are considered intracellular chaperones. Their expressions can increase...

Previously, a relationship has been found between diminished cellular maturity of human spermatozoa and low-level expression of the testis-specific chaperone protein, HspA2. Because HspA2 is a component of the synaptonemal complex in rodents, and assuming that this is also the case in men, it was postulated that the frequency of chromosomal aneuploidies would be higher in immature versus mature...