Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Biotechnology, Saveetha School of Engineering (SSE), SIMATS, Chennai, India
  • 2 Department of Bioinformatics, Saveetha School of Engineering (SSE), SIMATS, Chennai, India
  • 3 Department of Biotechnology, Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr. Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India
  • 4 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Saveetha School of Engineering (SSE), SIMATS, Chennai, India
  • 5 Department of Biotechnology, School of Bio Sciences and Technology, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, India
  • 6 Unit of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, AIMST University, Bedong, Malaysia
Front Med (Lausanne), 2021;8:723019.
PMID: 34926486 DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2021.723019

Abstract

Semen parameters are been found as a key factor to evaluate the count and morphology in the given semen sample. The deep knowledge of male infertility will unravel with semen parameters correlated with molecular and biochemical parameters. The current research study is to identify the motility associated protein and its structure through the in-silico approach. Semen samples were collected and initial analysis including semen parameters was analyzed by using the World Health Organization protocol. Semen biochemical parameters, namely, seminal plasma protein concentration, fructose content, and glucosidase content were calculated and evaluated for correlation. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) were carried out for identification of Septin-4 presence in the semen sample. Mascot search was done for protein conformation and in-silico characterization of Septin-4 by structural modeling in Iterative Threading Assembly Refinement (I-TASSER). Twenty-five nanoseconds molecular dynamics (MD) simulations results showed the stable nature of Septin-4 in the dynamic system. Overall, our results showed the presence of motility-associated protein in normospermia and control samples and not in the case of asthenospermia and oligoasthenospermia. Molecular techniques characterized the presence of Septin-4 and as a novel biomarker for infertility diagnosis.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.