Evaluation of PGK2 and ACR proteins in seminal plasma: suggestion of potential new biomarkers for prediction of sperm retrieval in non-obstructive azoospermia patients

Abstract

This study aimed to assess the role of testis-specific proteins, PGK2 and ACR, in the prediction of sperm retrieval results by microdissection testicular sperm extraction (micro-TESE) in men with non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA). This was a case-control study including 48 semen samples of NOA patients undergoing the micro-TESE procedure, 15 semen samples from normozoospermic men as the positive control, and 12 semen samples from obstructive azoospermia/post-vasectomy (OA/PV) as negative controls. We investigated the levels of PGK2 and ACR proteins by ELISA tests in seminal plasma samples. The ELISA results revealed a significantly higher concentration of PGK2 and ACR in the NOA patients with successful sperm retrieval (NOA+) in comparison to NOA patients with failed sperm retrieval (NOA−) group (p = 0.0001 in both cases). For the first time, the data from this study suggests that a seminal PGK2 concentration of 136.3 pg/ml and ACR concentration of 21.75 mIU/ml can be used as cut-off values for the prediction of micro-TESE outcomes in NOA patients. These findings may be useful to avoid unnecessary micro-TESE operations. Overall, the seminal levels of the PGK2 and ACR proteins may be useful in predicting sperm retrieval success by micro-TESE in NOA patients.

Keywords:

• Seminal plasma
• non-obstructive azoospermia
• micro-TESE
• PGK2
• ACR

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the patients who participated in the study and the andrologists from the Andrology Unit of the Royan Institute, Tehran, Iran who helped provide samples for this study. A special acknowledgment is dedicated to the staff of the Embryology Laboratory of Tehran University of Medical Sciences for their constant support.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by a grant from the Tehran University of Medical Sciences [No. 37940].