ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Pediatric Urology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1660777
This article is part of the Research TopicProceedings of Anatomy 2024 – Tripartite Meeting: The Role of Medical Embryology for Interdisciplinary ResearchView all articles
Downregulated Androgen Receptor Expression in Preputial Tissues of Children with Hypospadias
Provisionally accepted
Zhilin Yang
Peiliang ZhangTiejun ZhangJianchun YinGuanglun Zhou
Weiguang Zhao
Pengyu Chen
Jiaqiang LiShoulin Li*- Shenzhen Children's Hospital, Shenzhen, China
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Purpose: To resolve conflicting evidence on androgen receptor (AR) expression in hypospadias, we compared preputial AR levels between affected children and controls.Methods: Forty patients with isolated hypospadias (age 2.9±0.79 years, range 1.6-5.2 years) and 40 normal boys (age 3.2±0.79 years, range 1.8-4.7 years) who underwent circumcision for phimosis were included in our study. Inner plates of preputial tissues were analyzed by immunohistochemistry for AR detection.Results: AR immunoreactivity was predominantly localized to the basal epithelial layer.(average optical density (AOD), 0.38±0.09 vs. 0.56±0.11). However, there was no difference in AR expression between the proximal and distal hypospadias (AOD, 0.40±0.07 vs. 0.37±0.10, P=0.22).Conclusions: Preputial AR downregulation in hypospadias implicates AR deficiency in pathogenesis, providing evidence to resolve a key controversy in the field.
Keywords: Hypospadias, androgen receptor, Prepuce, Children, Expression
Received: 06 Jul 2025; Accepted: 08 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Zhang, Zhang, Yin, Zhou, Zhao, Chen, Li and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shoulin Li, Shenzhen Children's Hospital, Shenzhen, China
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