Male infertility revealed by DNA ancestry tests
DNA testing to establish ancestry are becoming very popular and are being offered by several companies. As the knowledge about the genetic composition of human populations accumulates, the manufacturers are including more markers to their tests in order to make them more accurate and span more ancestral lineages.
Geneticists from the Department of Genetics, University of Leicester have discovered an unexpected outcome of these kinds of genetic tests. A study conducted studies of Y chromosomal haplotyping involving 2574 English males and Greenlandic Inuit males revealed that some forms of chromosomal alterations that cause male infertility can be uncovered by some tests when they include the analysis of certain markers.
Some infertile men carry a ‘deletion’ (loss of a portion of DNA) in the AZF region of the short arm of their Y-chromosomes. When a genetic test is designed to investigate the very same region of the Y-chromosome, the results will show the deletion, revealing the person that he is likely to be infertile.
The researchers say that such companies should avoid using those regions or warn their customers about the possibility of discovering the chromosomal condition and possibly a diagnosis of infertility.
Source: Journal of Medical Genetics