OBJECTIVE To determine whether changes in the polymorphic trinucleotide (CAG) tract of the androgen receptor gene are associated with spermatogenic defects in patients with male infertility. DESIGN Case-control study of two ethnic groups. SETTING University referral centers for male infertility at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, and National University Hospital, Singapore. PAR...

Androgens mediate a number of diverse responses through the androgen receptor, a 110 kD ligand-activated nuclear receptor. Androgen receptor expression, which is found in a variety of tissues, changes throughout development, aging, and malignant transformation. The androgen receptor can be activated by two ligands, testosterone and dihydrotestosterone, which bind to the androgen receptor with d...

Azoles are used in agriculture and medicine to combat fungal infections. We have previously examined the endocrine disrupting properties of agricultural azole fungicides triticonazole flusilazole. Triticonazole displayed strong androgen receptor (AR) antagonism vitro, whereas utero exposure resulted anti-androgenic effects vivo evidenced by shorter anogenital distance (AGD) fetal male rats. Flu...

Prostate cancer progression to castration refractory disease is associated with anomalous transcriptional activity of the androgen receptor (AR) in an androgen-depleted milieu. To identify novel gene products whose downregulation transactivates AR in prostate cancer cells, we performed a screen of enzymatically-generated shRNA lenti-libraries selecting for transduced LNCaP cells with elevated e...

Androgen and androgen receptor (AR) play important roles in male spermatogenesis and fertility, yet detailed androgen/AR signals in Sertoli cells remain unclear. To identify AR target genes in Sertoli cells, we analyzed the gene expression profiles of testis between mice lacking AR in Sertoli cells (S-AR(-/y)) and their littermate wild-type (WT) mice. Digital gene expression analysis identified...

Although decades of research have established that androgen is essential for spermatogenesis, androgen's mechanism of action remains elusive. This is in part because only a few androgen-responsive genes have been definitively identified in the testis. Here, we propose that microRNAs--small, non-coding RNAs--are one class of androgen-regulated trans-acting factors in the testis. Specifically, by...

Androgens drive male secondary sexual differentiation and maturation. Mutations in the androgen receptor (AR) gene cause an array of abnormal sex differentiation phenotypes in humans, ranging from mild through partial to complete androgen insensitivity. Earlier, we reported a C3693T missense mutation in the AR gene in a familial case of complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), resulting...

Objective: Animal models suggest that androgen receptor gene polymorphisms might affect disease predisposition in human immune-mediated diabetes. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the human androgen receptor gene exon 1 CAG repeat polymorphisms on type 1 diabetes (T1D) susceptibility. Design and methods: A combined strategy of case-control and family-based approaches was us...