{"doi":"10.1111/andr.13295","title":"Altered non‐coding RNA profiles of seminal plasma extracellular vesicles of men with poor semen quality undergoing in vitro fertilization treatment","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Currently, the precise mechanisms that underline male infertility are still unclear. Accumulating data implicate non-coding RNA cargo of seminal plasma extracellular vesicles due to their association with poor semen quality and higher expression levels relative to vesicle-free seminal plasma. METHOD: We assessed sperm-free seminal plasma extracellular vesicle non-coding RNA profiles from 91 semen samples collected from male participants of couples seeking infertility treatment. Men were classified into two groups (poor, n = 32; normal, n = 59) based on World Health Organization semen cutoffs. Small RNA sequencing reads were mapped to standard biotype-specific transcriptomes in the order micro RNA > transfer RNA > piwi-interacting RNA > ribosomal RNA > ribosomal RNA > circular RNA > long non-coding RNA using STAR. Differential expression of normalized non-coding RNA read counts between the two groups was conducted by EdgeR (Fold change ≥1.5 and (false discovery rate [FDR] < 0.05). RESULT: Small RNA sequencing identified a wide variety of seminal plasma extracellular vesicle non-coding RNA biotypes including micro RNA, ribosomal RNAs, piwi-interacting RNAs, transfer RNA, long non-coding RNAs as well as circular RNAs, and fragments associated with pseudogenes, and nonsense-mediated decay. The expression levels of 57 seminal plasma extracellular vesicle non-coding RNAs (micro RNA: 6, piwi-interacting RNA: 4, ribosomal RNA: 6, circular RNA: 34, and long non-coding RNA: 7) were altered in men with poor semen quality relative to normal semen parameters, many (60%) of which were circular RNA species. Ontology analysis of differentially expressed micro RNAs and circular RNAs showed enrichment in functional terms related to cellular communication and early development. CONCLUSION: This is the first study to generate comprehensive seminal plasma extracellular vesicle non-coding RNA profiles in a clinical setting and to determine the differences between men with normal and abnormal semen parameters. Thus, our study suggests that seminal plasma extracellular vesicle non-coding RNAs may represent novel biomarkers of male reproductive phenotypes.","journal":"Andrology","year":2022,"id":252079,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":24,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9315,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":654747,"name":"Emily Houle","orcid":"0000-0002-6918-9695","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":320647,"name":"Brian W. Whitcomb","orcid":"0000-0002-8646-5823","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":466991,"name":"Alexander Suvorov","orcid":"0000-0002-2757-5897","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":896557,"name":"Tayyab Rahil","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":695623,"name":"Cynthia K. Sites","orcid":"0000-0002-6537-3807","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":247244,"name":"Stephen A. Krawetz","orcid":"0000-0002-7113-2364","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":456906,"name":"Pablo E. Visconti","orcid":"0000-0001-9320-7518","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":393562,"name":"J. Richard Pilsner","orcid":"0000-0002-4541-6267","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":654745,"name":"Oladele Oluwayiose","orcid":"0000-0001-6428-766X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":53,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:24:46.226372Z","pmid":"36111950","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}