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COVID-19 Infection Induce miR-371a-3p Upregulation Resulting in Influence on Male Fertility

2022; Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute; Volume: 10; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3390/biomedicines10040858

2227-9059

Heike Goebel, Barbara Koeditz, Manuel Huerta, Ersen Kameri, Tim Nestler, Thomas Kamphausen, J. Friemann, Matthias Hamdorf, Timo Ohrmann, Philipp Koehler, Oliver A. Cornely, Manuel Montesinos‐Rongen, David Nicol, Hubert Schorle, Peter Boor, Alexander Quaas, Christian P. Pallasch, Axel Heidenreich, Melanie von Brandenstein,

Genital Health and Disease

In December 2019, the first case of COVID-19 was reported and since then several groups have already published that the virus can be present in the testis. To study the influence of SARS-CoV-2 which cause a dysregulation of the androgen receptor (AR) level, thereby leading to fertility problems and inducing germ cell testicular changes in patients after the infection. Formalin-Fixed-Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) testicular samples from patients who died with or as a result of COVID-19 (n = 32) with controls (n = 6), inflammatory changes (n = 9), seminoma with/without metastasis (n = 11) compared with healthy biopsy samples (n = 3) were analyzed and compared via qRT-PCR for the expression of miR-371a-3p. An immunohistochemical analysis (IHC) and ELISA were performed in order to highlight the miR-371a-3p targeting the AR. Serum samples of patients with mild or severe COVID-19 symptoms (n = 34) were analyzed for miR-371a-3p expression. In 70% of the analyzed postmortem testicular tissue samples, a significant upregulation of the miR-371a-3p was detected, and 75% of the samples showed a reduced spermatogenesis. In serum samples, the upregulation of the miR-371a-3p was also detectable. The upregulation of the miR-371a-3p is responsible for the downregulation of the AR in SARS-CoV-2-positive patients, resulting in decreased spermatogenesis. Since the dysregulation of the AR is associated with infertility, further studies have to confirm if the identified dysregulation is regressive after a declining infection.