Evaluation of Pgk2 and Acr Proteins in Seminal Plasma: Suggestion of Potential New Biomarkers for Prediction of Sperm Retrieval in Non-Obstructive Azoospermia Patients Publisher Pubmed



Ghanami Gashti N^{1, 2} ; Sadighi Gilani MA^{3, 4} ; Kabodmehri R² ; Nikmahzar A¹ ; Salem M¹ ; Abbasi M¹ Show Affiliations
Source: Human Fertility Published:2023

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. © 2022 The British Fertility Society.