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Sperm gene may explain the significant proportion of infertility
According to the definition of WHO, the couples are referred to as infertile if they are willing to conceive but can not make it in one year. About 15% of the couples are infertile, among which half of the time the problem is related to the men. 17% of the male infertility cases are still unexplained.
A study conducted on the 500 Chinese newlyweds attempting to start a family shows that, one gene named DEFB may be in charge of the infertility. In couples where the men had two copies of mutant DEFB, the odds of childbirth in any month is reduced by 30% and the average time to conception is delayed by two months compared to the couples in which the men had no or only one copy of mutant version. Careful inspection by the researchers show that, the sperms coated with normal DEFB are more likely to reach the eggs. Normal DEFB helps sperms to pass through the cervical mucus on the way to eggs. It also helps the sperms to evade the female immune system. Without it, the sperms may be easily marked as foreign invaders and killed by the immune system.
The DEFB gene helps explaning the inferitlity. One step further, can we fix those mutant versions, which means that we can utterly resolve the infertility problem.
