A professor in southwest China's Sichuan University has successfully cloned two human genes which may be closely related to male sterility.
About one tenth of couples have sterility problems and all the forms of male sterility may be related to abnormal genes, said Prof. Zhang Sizhong. Only one kind of gene, namely USP9Y, has been proved to have a direct link with male sterility.
The two genes cloned by Zhang and his colleagues, namely TCP11 and ZNF230, have been registered at the American Gene Bank.
Since China launched the human gene research program in 1993, Zhang has studied genes related to male sterility. He has successfully cloned four human genes and two rat genes, which are all likely to be relevant to male sterility.
Besides, Prof. Wang Linfang, of Beijing Medical Sciences Academy, and Prof. Zhang Yonglian, of Shanghai Biochemistry Institute, have each identified a gene that may be related to male sterility.
In future, scientists would put all these research results into practice, helping to deal more successfully with difficult diseases, said Zhang Sizhong.
(Xinhua News Agency April 5, 2003)
