Background: Klinefelter Syndrome (KS) is the most common abnormality of sex chromosomes (47,XXY) and represents the first genetic cause of male infertility. Mechanisms leading to KS testis degeneration are still not completely defined but considered to be mainly the result of germ cells loss. In order to unravel the molecular basis of global testis dysfunction in KS patients, we performed a transcriptome analysis on testis biopsies obtained from 6 azoospermic non-mosaic KS patients and 3 control subjects.
Results: The analysis found that, compared to controls, KS patients showed the differential up- and down-expression of 656 and 247 transcripts. The large majority of the deregulated transcripts were expressed by Sertoli cells (SCs) and Leydig cells (LCs). Functional analysis of the deregulated transcripts indicated changes of genes involved in cell death, inflammatory response, lipid metabolism, steroidogenesis, blood-testis-barrier formation and maintenance, as well as spermatogenesis failure.
Conclusions: Taken together, present data highlight the modulation of hundreds of genes in the somatic components of KS patient testis. The increased LCs steroidogenic function together with the impairment of inflammatory pathways and BTB structure, result in increased apoptosis. These findings may represent a critical roadmap for therapeutic intervention and prevention of KS-related testis failure.