Asadpour R, Chelan EM, et al. - For diagnosing male infertility, semen analysis has been considered the critical assessment test; however, its limitations result in veiling of the cause behind infertility in 40% of infertile men. Hence, there has been a global necessity for novel and better diagnostic tools and biomarkers. Given the relevance of microRNAs, which are short (about 18–22 nucleotide length) non-coding RNAs, in controlling most (> 60%) of the protein-coding genes posttranscriptionally, researchers herein consider that their abnormal expression level can indicate a specific disease such as infertility.

• This is a narrative review, in which researchers obtained and summed up the recent publications concerning the significant role of microRNAs in different male infertility categories, including azoospermia, oligozoospermia, astheno-zoospermia and teratozoospermia.

• Many factors, such as mitochondria and different biomolecules, including micro-RNAs are present in spermatozoa that play important roles in numerous stages of reproduction (from spermatogenesis to embryonic development).

• In general, abnormally expressed microRNAs are indicative of the misregulation of target genes that thereby disrupts a biological pathway and results in male infertility.

• Findings overall suggest a possible diagnostic utility of alterations in the expression pattern of microRNAs for male infertility cases.