Kinesin binding as a shared pathway underlying the genetic basis of male factor infertility and insomnia

Abstract

To study whether male infertility and insomnia share genetic risk variants, and to identify any molecular, cellular and biological interactions between these traits. The in silico study was performed. Two lists of genetics variants were manually curated through a literature review, 1 of those associated with male infertility and the other with insomnia. Genes were assigned to these variants to compose male infertility (454 genes) and insomnia (921 genes)-associated gene lists. Not applicable. Not applicable. Enrichment of biological pathways and protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis. Twenty-eight genes were common to both lists, representing a greater overlap than would be expected by chance. In the 28 genes contained in the intersection list, there was a significant enrichment of pathways related to kinesin binding. A PPI analysis using the intersection list as input retrieved 25 nodes and indicated that 2 of them were kinesin-related proteins (PLEKHM2 and KCL1). The shared male infertility and insomnia genes, and the biological pathways highlighted in this study, suggest that further functional investigations into the interplay between fertility and sleep are warranted.