Transient neonatal 6-propyl-2-thiouracil (PTU) induced hypothyroidism affects Leydig and Sertoli cell numbers in the developing testis, resulting in increased adult testis size. The hypothyroid condition was thought to be responsible, an assumption questioned by studies showing that uninterrupted fetal/postnatal hypothyroidism did not affect adult testis size. Here, we investigated effects of t...

Reducing prepubertal endogenous estrogens led to increased numbers of Sertoli cells and the associated increased testicular size and testicular sperm production capacity in boars. The increased number of Sertoli cells might be due to a longer time for proliferation; delayed differentiation of Sertoli cells during suppressed endogenous estrogens would be consistent with this hypothesized, prolon...

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...