Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37174638›Full record

ArticleCells2023

Sperm Motility Annotated Genes: Are They Associated with Impaired Fecundity?

Masood Abu-Halima, Lea Simone Becker, Mohammad A Al Smadi, Hashim Abdul-Khaliq, Markus Raeschle, Eckart Meese

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Cells, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
9citing papers in PubMed
2.7field-weighted citation impact, top 10% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

9 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Observational
  3. Article
  4. Genetic variants inThe Libyan journal of medicine · 2025
    Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Single Sperm RNA signatures reveal MicroRNA biomarkers for male subfertility.Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics · 2024
    Article
  8. Review
  9. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.

Masood Abu-HalimaInstitute of Human Genetics, Saarland University, 66421 Homburg, Germany.ORCID 0000-0001-9048-4958
Lea Simone BeckerInstitute of Human Genetics, Saarland University, 66421 Homburg, Germany.ORCID 0000-0002-3347-9447
Mohammad A Al SmadiReproductive Endocrinology and IVF Unit, King Hussein Medical Centre, Amman 11733, Jordan.ORCID 0000-0002-8262-6247
Hashim Abdul-KhaliqDepartment of Pediatric Cardiology, Saarland University Medical Center, 66421 Homburg, Germany.
Markus RaeschleDepartment of Molecular Genetics, TU Kaiserslautern, 67653 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Eckart MeeseInstitute of Human Genetics, Saarland University, 66421 Homburg, Germany.
Saarland University · DEKing Hussein Medical Center · JOUniversity of Kaiserslautern · DE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Sperm motility is a prerequisite for achieving pregnancy, and alterations in sperm motility, along with sperm count and morphology, are commonly observed in subfertile men. The aim of the study was to determine whether the expression level of genes annotated with the Gene Ontology (GO) term 'sperm motility' differed in sperm collected from healthy men and men diagnosed with oligoasthenozoospermia. Reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR), quantitative mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), and enrichment analyses were used to validate a set of 132 genes in 198 men present at an infertility clinic. Out of the 132 studied sperm-motility-associated genes, 114 showed differentially expressed levels in oligoasthenozoospermic men compared to those of normozoospermic controls using an RT-qPCR analysis. Of these, 94 genes showed a significantly lower expression level, and 20 genes showed a significantly higher expression level. An MS analysis of sperm from an independent cohort of healthy and subfertile men identified 692 differentially expressed proteins, of which 512 were significantly lower and 180 were significantly higher in oligoasthenozoospermic men compared to those of the normozoospermic controls. Of the 58 gene products quantified with both techniques, 48 (82.75%) showed concordant regulation. Besides the sperm-motility-associated proteins, the unbiased proteomics approach uncovered several novel proteins whose expression levels were specifically altered in abnormal sperm samples. Among these deregulated proteins, there was a clear overrepresentation of annotation terms related to sperm integrity, the cytoskeleton, and energy-related metabolism, as well as human phenotypes related to spermatogenesis and sperm-related abnormalities. These findings suggest that many of these proteins may serve as diagnostic markers of male infertility. Our study reveals an extended number of sperm-motility-associated genes with altered expression levels in the sperm of men with oligoasthenozoospermia. These genes and/or proteins can be used in the future for better assessments of male factor infertility.

Indexed as

Infertility, MaleSemenChromatography, LiquidFemaleFertilityHumansMalePregnancySpermatozoaTandem Mass Spectrometrymale infertilityoligoasthenozoospermiaproteomeRNAsperm

Identifiers

PMID37174638
PMCPMC10177407
OpenAlexW4366987202

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.