Identification of small non-coding RNAs as sperm quality biomarkers for in vitro fertilization

Abstract

In recent decades, assisted reproduction technology (ART) has been widely used to treat human infertility. However, only approximately 30% of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) cycles result in pregnancy 1 . The classical semen parameters, such as sperm density, morphology, and motility, are not sufficient to effectively assess sperm fertility. Therefore, a method for distinguishing high-quality sperm samples from samples with normal semen parameters is highly desirable. Many types of small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs), including microRNAs (miRNAs), PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), tRNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs) and rRNA-derived small RNAs (rsRNAs), have been found in mammalian male germ cells and play important regulatory roles in spermatogenesis 2 , 3 . Identification of the subpopulations of sperm sncRNAs responsible for sperm fertility is of great interest. However, using sncRNAs as prognostic biomarkers for evaluating sperm quality for IVF has not been performed to date. Here, we found that sncRNAs were significantly associated with sperm quality, providing useful biomarkers for improving the success rate of IVF.