Expression difference of miR-10b and miR-135b between the fertile and infertile semen samples (p)

Abstract

Non-protein coding RNAs, miRNAs (microRNAs), are a class of promising molecular biomarkers for forensic body fluid identification as the very small size and their tissue-specific expression manners. A number of studies have showed that semen can be distinguished from forensic related body fluids by the semen-specific miRNAs through microassay screening and RT-RCR. Infertility is becoming a global health problem affecting 10%–15% of couples worldwide and half of the cases are due to male factors. So high incidence of infertility forced the forensic researchers to consider the impact of the semen infertility on the semen identification. Hence, several kinds of semen from man infertility were collected into our research such as asthenospermia (AS) and azoospermia (AZ). The expression level of semen samples (fertile and infertile) and other common forensic body fluids were evaluated using two miRNA markers (miR-10b and miR-135b) by RT-PCR with TaqMan probe. Results showed that the two miRNAs expressed significantly higher in normal semen (NS) than other body fluids. Nevertheless, there was a distinct down-regulation in the expression of AS samples. The goal of our study was to ascertain whether the two miRNAs could distinguish semen (fertile and infertile) efficiently and accurately. This study reminded forensic workers should pay attention to samples in pathology when identifying body fluids, which would have a far-reaching significance for forensic application.