Infertility and HLA Antigen - Male Infertility and Infertile Couples -*

Abstract

On the basis of the concept that immunogenetic factors play a role in the incidence of unexplained male infertility, the so-called idiopathic infertility, HLA antigen analyses were performed for azoospermia cases among infertile males diagnosed by testicular biopsies as having germ cell aplasia and unexplained infertile couples. The detection frequency of the various HLA antigens of locus A in the azoospermia cases with germ cell aplasia did not differ from that in the controls, but there was a significant increase of BW 35 at locus B (corrected P value < 0.017). In the unexplained infertile couples, frequencies of locus A antigens closely resembled the controls, but there was a significantly higher frequency of BW 35 at locus B. An important future topic for investigation concerning the correlation between infertility and the HLA antigens will be the HLA-D loci on the basis of their correlation with BW 35.