WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Researchers at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have found nearly 350 genes related to female fertility.

Their research may open the door to much wider study in the poorly understood field of infertility.

"This study gives us a way to begin to understand the causes of female infertility," said lead researcher Diego Castrillon in a briefing released Saturday by the university. Their findings is published in the September issue of the journal Genetics.

"It gives us a much more complete list of candidate genes to explore." The study was done in mice, "but at the molecular level, ovarian biology is very similar in mice and humans," Castrillon said.

Some of the 348 genes the researchers found were already known to be involved in infertility, which helped validate the experimental method. Most, however, were previously unknown.

These discoveries might lead the way to eventually allowing clinicians to test whether an infertile woman has problems with a specific gene, allowing for improved diagnostic tests and tailored therapy in the future.

About 13 percent of women suffer from infertility, with the most common cause being dysfunction of the ovary. Researchers suspected genetic links in many cases, Castrillon said.

Future work will focus on finding out how these genes communicate with each other to control fertility development, and study their contribution to female infertility, said the research team.