Background: Alcohol abuse can induce testicular atrophy, but it only occurs in some alcoholics. Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) is located principally on the Leydig cells.
Methods: To investigate whether genetic polymorphism of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) 2 and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) 2 was related to alcoholic testicular atrophy, we determined restriction fragment-length polymorphisms of the ADH2 and ALDH2 genes in 43 Japanese male alcoholics and 50 healthy subjects. An orchidometer was used to determine the testicular size.
Results: Less than 16 ml in testicular size was defined as testicular atrophy. Testicular atrophy was found in 24 (55.8%) cases out of 43 alcoholics. Digestion with MaeIII and MboII after polymerase chain reaction amplification showed that the ADH21 allele frequency was significantly higher in patients with testicular atrophy than in those without testicular atrophy (chi2 = 4.665, p = 0.031), whereas no significant association was observed between testicular atrophy and the ALDH2 gene.
Conclusions: The ADH21 allele may be associated with alcoholic testicular atrophy.