DIFFERENTIAL RNA FINGERPRINTING AS A TOOL IN THE ANALYSIS OF SPERMATOZOAL GENE-EXPRESSION

The apparent decline in human male fertility and the concomitant incre ase in testicular pathology have prompted discussion of the underlying molecular mechanisms which may underpin these observations. While mon itoring the expression of protamine-2 genes in the human ejaculate, we found a representative complement of sperm mRNAs following sequence-i ndependent amplification of reverse-transcribed cDNAs with the polymer ase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The revelation of unique sperm-derived PC R products using this method suggests that it should now be possible t o investigate gene expression in human spermatogenesis by differential RNA fingerprinting of ejaculate spermatozoa. The identification of mo lecular markers and the corresponding genes associated with male infer tility will be considerably enhanced by these investigations while obv iating the requirement for invasive biopsy.