Identification of potential key genes related to idiopathic male infertility using RNA-sequencing data: an in-silico approach

Abstract

Among reproductive health problems, idiopathic infertility affects married couples. The current diagnosis of male infertility focuses on the concentration, motility, and morphology of sperm in the ejaculate. Since the molecular mechanism of idiopathic infertility is unknown, identification of Differentially Expressed Genes (DEGs) among the control and idiopathic infertile male can shed light on diagnosis and treatment. Here, we analyzed the dataset GSE65683 to identify DEGs in idiopathic human sperm in three groups of patients: (i) Timed Intercourse (TIC); (ii) Intrauterine Insemination (IUI); and (iii) Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). The enrichment analysis was carried out using DAVID (Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery) and GeneCodis for the DEGs. Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) network of these DEGs were constructed using the STRING database. The network parameters such as degree and betweenness were calculated to select the important hubs. In total, 118 DEGs in TIC, 446 in IUI, and 188 in ART were identified. PPI network was constructed and identified critical top hub genes such as ACTB, BTBD6, EIF2S3, EIF3A, EIF4E, POLR2L, RPL4, RPL7, RPS11, RPL13, RPS15, RPL23, RPL27, RPL9, RPLP0 and UBA52 that may play an essential role in idiopathic male infertility. Thus, the identified hub genes may provide an insight into the molecular mechanism and contribute to discovering novel therapeutic targets and developing new strategies for idiopathic male infertility.

Keywords:

• Idiopathic infertility
• differentially expressed genes
• hub genes
• gene ontology
• pathways
• network analysis
• in silico

Acknowledgement

It is an MTech thesis project carried out at Department of Bioinformatics. The authors thank the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India for providing the computational facility to carry out the work.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Author contributions

Designed the experiments, performed, and analyze the experiments, prepared the figures and tables, author the draft by LKL. Analyzed the data, authored, or reviewed the draft, and final draft approved by LDN. Authored and approved the final draft by MM. Supervised and authored or reviewed the manuscript and finally approved by AV.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.