A method for isolating A spermatogonia from the adult vitamin A-deficient (VAD) rat testis is described. After removal, the testes were decapsulated and tubules were dissected. An enzymatic digestion with collagenase, hyaluronidase, and trypsin was performed first to eliminate most of the interstitial cells. A second digestion with collagenase and hyaluronidase was performed to obtain a cell su...

ABSTRACT Heterochromatin-related epigenetic mechanisms, such as DNA methylation, facilitate pairing of homologous chromosomes during the meiotic prophase mammalian spermatogenesis. In pro-spermatogonia, de novo methylation plays a key role in completing and initiating division. However, maintenance regulation meiosis, especially adult, is not well understood. Here, we reveal that NP95 (also kno...

Mice were injected intraperitoneally with 15 #c of H3-thymidine. The time course of the labeling in spermatogonia and spermatocytes was studied by using autoradiography on 5 # sections stained by the periodic acid-Schiff method and hematoxylin over a period of 57 hours after injection. Four generations of t~pe A (called AI, AII, Am, and Air), oneofintermediate, and one of type B spermatogonia o...

Glial cell-line-derived neurotropic factor (GDNF) and its receptors glial cell-line-derived neurotropic factor alpha (GFR1alpha) and rearranged during transformation (RET) have been localized in the rat testis during postnatal development. The three mRNAs, and GDNF and GFR1alpha proteins were detected in testis extracts from 1- to 90-day-old rats by reverse transcriptase PCR and Western blottin...

The aim of this study was to examine the controversial effects of experimental unilateral cryptorchidism and subsequent orchiopexy on the number of germ cells and other morphometric characteristics of testicular and epididymal structures in adult rabbits. Unilateral cryptorchidism was induced in 11 mature male New Zealand white rabbits by returning one testis, together with the ipsilateral epid...

BACKGROUND MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are critical regulators of transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene silencing, which are involved in multiple developmental processes in many organisms. Apart from miRNAs, mouse germ cells express another type of small RNA, piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs). Although it has been clear that piRNAs play a role in repression of retrotransposons during spermatogenesi...

Defective mini-puberty results in insufficient testosterone secretion that impairs the differentiation of gonocytes into dark-type (Ad) spermatogonia. The differentiation of gonocytes into Ad spermatogonia can be induced by administration of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist, GnRHa (Buserelin, INN)). Nothing is known about the mechanism that underlies successful GnRHa treatment in the ...