The timely opening and closing of inter-Sertoli cell tight junctions in the rat testis are essential cellular events in the completion of spermatogenesis. They permit the passage of preleptotene and leptotene spermatocytes to cross the blood-testis barrier from the basal compartment to the adluminal compartment of the seminiferous epithelium so that these cells can continue their further develo...

Chen and Liu (1) agree with our main conclusion that glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) produced by peritubular myoid (PM) cells signals to undifferentiated spermatogonia and regulates their maintenance (2), but argue that a PM cell-specific gene knockout is impossible because the myosin heavy polypeptide 11 smooth muscle-Cre (Myh11-Cre) is not expressed specifically in PM cells...

It is currently believed that the fertility level of the adult mammalian testis is related to the total number of Sertoli cells, which is established in the early prepubertal life. We have previously reported that, in an in-vitro system, terminal Sertoli cell proliferation is sustained by activin A in concert with FSH. In this paper, we have addressed the question of whether this activin A effe...

OBJECTIVES Toll-like receptors (TLRs) on Sertoli cells are thought to have essential roles in sperm protection. This study was conducted to investigate the expression of TLR2 and TLR3 in Sertoli cells of men with azoospermia. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this experimental study, testicular biopsies were taken from ten azoospermic men. Following enzymatic dissociation, the samples were moved to le...

BACKGROUND Testosterone provokes Sertoli cell maturation and represses AMH production. In adult patients with Sertoli-cells-only syndrome (SCOS) and androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), high level of AMH expression is detected in Sertoli cells due to defect of androgen/AR signaling. OBJECTIVE We postulated that up-regulation of SOX9 due to impairment of androgen/AR signaling in Sertoli cell...

Spermatogenesis is an intriguing but complicated biological process. However, many studies since the 1960s have focused either on the hormonal events of the hypothalamus-pituitary-testicular axis or morphological events that take place in the seminiferous epithelium. Recent advances in biochemistry, cell biology, and molecular biology have shifted attention to understanding some of the key even...

Proliferation and cord formation by embryonic Sertoli cells are pivotal events involved in testis morphogenesis. A number of growth factors have been implicated in mediating these events. However, the exact level of involvement and importance of each as yet remains elusive. We have adopted an in vitro approach to assess developing mouse Sertoli cells, whereby they are cultured in the presence o...

Although many genes are expressed selectively in Sertoli cells, regulatory sequences sufficient to drive Sertoli cell-specific expression in the postnatal and adult testis in vivo have not been identified. In the present study, we identified promoter sequences from the Pem homeobox gene that direct Sertoli cell-specific expression in an androgen-dependent and stage-specific manner. Immunohistoc...

In mammals, the supporting cell lineage in an embryonic gonad communicates the sex-determining decision to various sexually dimorphic cell types in the developing embryo, including the germ cells. However, the molecular nature of the sex-determining signals that pass from the supporting cells to the germ cells is not well understood. We have identified a conserved transmembrane protein, Sdmg1, ...

The present study was designed to investigate the hypothesis that in vivo entosis is a novel pathway for eliminating spermatozoa in the seminiferous tubules (ST) during hibernation of the Chinese soft-shelled turtle. Western blot analysis revealed that the expression of LAMP1 in the testis was significantly higher during hibernation than that during non-hibernation. Immunohistochemistry reactio...