Disruption of telomere-telomere interactions associated with DNA damage in human spermatozoa.

摘要

Telomeres play a fundamental role in the organization of the sperm nucleus resulting in the looped chromosome configuration and non-random positioning of chromosomes. Telomeres localize in the nuclear periphery and interact dynamically by forming dimers and tetramers. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship of telomere interactions to DNA damage, a factor known to adversely influence male fertility. Telomeres were localized by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) using human chromosome pan-telomeric probe in ten samples with low and ten samples with high sperm DNA damage. The samples with a low DNA fragmentation index (DFI) had a mean number of telomere signals of 21.7+/-1.9 compared to a mean of 26.5+/-3.4 signals in the samples with a high DFI (p<.005). The percentage of cells with a typical telomere distribution of