Genome-wide methylation analyses of human sperm unravel novel differentially methylated regions in asthenozoospermia.

To investigate DNA methylation patterns in asthenozoospermic and normozoospermic sperm and to explore the potential roles of differential methylations in the etiology of the disease. The authors performed whole-genome bisulfite sequencing analysis between normozoospermic controls and asthenozoospermic individuals. The authors identified 238 significant differentially methylated regions. These differentially methylated regions were annotated to 114 protein-coding genes, with many genes showing associations with spermatogenesis, sperm motility etc. There are plenty of genomic regions exhibiting altered DNA methylation in asthenozoospermia, a number of which are located within or adjacent to sperm-related genes, suggesting novel methylation markers of asthenozoospermia and potential epigenetic regulation mechanisms through DNA methylation in the disease.