The Role of Peripheral Blood miRNAs as Non-invasive Biomarkers to Diagnose Male Infertility: A Systematic Review

Infertility refers to the inability to achieve a pregnancy after one year of regular sexual intercourse, without the use of contraceptive methods, half of which is due to male factor. The couples with infertility suffers from emotional and psychological problems which affect the health of the family. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play an essential role in the process of spermatogenesis and infertility. The study aims to investigate the role of peripheral blood miRNAs, as non-invasive biomarkers, for the diagnosis and prognosis of male infertility. Information sources or data: In this review study, related articles published in English or Persian from 2012 to 2022 were searched and evaluated based on inclusion and exclusion criteria independently by three researchers.

The search was conducted using the keywords: Male infertility, Diagnosis, Identification, miRNAs, Biomarkers, Non-invasive, Peripheral blood, Semen analysis, Testicular biopsy, and Treatment in both English and Persian in ScienceDirect, PubMed, Medline, Google Scholar, SID, and Magiran databases.

Of 114 found articles, 47 were finally selected for the review. Their results showed that the diagnosis of male infertility by semen analysis do not provide accurate results due to the lack of molecular investigation and invasive testicular biopsy. They suggested the use of peripheral blood miRNAs to screen male infertility.

Considering the importance of childbearing and the global need for new and efficient diagnostic tools, miRNAs can be used as non-invasive, specific, stable, reproducible, and available biomarkers for screening and diagnosis of male infertility. This is a promising and challenging issue and needs further investigations.