[Nucleotide polymorphism rs4880 of the SOD2 gene and the risk of male infertility].

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the correlation of the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs4880 of the superoxide dismutase 2 (SOD2) gene with the risk of male infertility.

METHODS

This casecontrol study included 519 male patients with idiopathic infertility (aged 19－40 ［28.93±4.93］ years) in the case group and 338 fertile men (aged 19－40 ［28.40±4.25］ years) in the control group. We collected the clinical data, genotyped the SNP rs4880 of the SOD2 gene by Sequenom Mass Array, and analyzed the association of different genotypes with male infertility using the logistic regression model.

RESULTS

Statically significant differences were observed between the case and control groups in the level of folliclestimulating hormone (FSH) (［4.72±2.51］ vs ［15.65±17.24］ U/L, P< 0.01), the percentage of progressively mobile sperm (［9.12±13.5］ vs ［41.95±9.03］%, P< 0.01), and sperm concentration (［12.95±24.38］ vs ［72.88±45.60］ ×106/ml, P< 0.01), but not in other parameters. No correlation was found between male infertility and the heterozygous genotype TC (OR = 0.90, 95% CI: 0.65－1.25, P = 0.516) or the homozygous genotype CC (OR=1.49, 95% CI: 0.38－5.81, P = 0.566) as compared with the wild genotype TT, and similar results were obtained in the analysis of the subgroups.

CONCLUSIONS

The SNP rs4880 of the SOD2 gene was not correlated with male infertility, which, however, is to be supported by further studies with larger samples from more areas.