background: the sertoli cells in the testis create unique and safe environment to protect seminiferous tubules from auto antigens and invading pathogens. these cells produce the survival factor of the blood-testis barrier and produce special materials such as androgen binding proteins and contribute to the coordinated action of spermatogenesis. given that the sertoli cells play an essential rol...

Sertoli cells are involved in the control of spermatogenesis. In adult animals, the Sertoli cell stocks, fixed before puberty, are highly correlated with those of the germ cells. Some factors influencing Sertoli cell stock formation have been analyzed: 1) Early hemicastration of impuberal animals showed that the proliferative activities of the Sertoli and the germ cells before puberty, rather t...

Fetal androgen disruption, induced by the administration of anti-androgen flutamide (0.4, 2, and 10 mg/kg day) causes a long-term apoptosis in testicular germ cells in adult male rat offspring. One of the questions raised by this observation is the role of the Sertoli cells in the adult germ cell apoptotic process. It is shown here that Sertoli cells originating from 15-day-old rats treated in ...

There are numerous types of junctions in the seminiferous epithelium which are integrated with, and critically dependent on the Sertoli cell cytoskeleton. These include the basal tight junctions between Sertoli cells that form the main component of the blood-testis barrier, the basal ectoplasmic specializations (basal ES) and basal tubulobulbar complexes (basal TBC) between Sertoli cells; as we...

Whereas spermatogonia stem cells continually divide to populate the testis with developing germ cells, the major supporter of this process, the Sertoli cell, ceases to proliferate shortly after birth in rodents and during puberty in higher primates including men. Because Sertoli cells are capable of supporting only a fixed number of germ cells, the timing of Sertoli cell exit from the cell cycl...

We determined the functional role of the Sertoli cell glucocorticoid receptor (GR) in vivo using a transgenic Cre-loxP approach to conditionally disrupt GR expression. Sertoli cell GR knockout (SCGRKO) was shown by absent Sertoli cell-specific GR immunolocalization and reduced levels of glucocorticoid-responsive Stc1 and Tsc22d3 mRNA in SCGRKO relative to control testes. Adult SCGRKO testes exh...