Seminiferous tubule molecular imaging for evaluation of male fertility: Seeing is believing.
Male fertility assessment
Male infertility
Seminiferous tubule
Whole-mount staining
Journal
Tissue & cell
ISSN: 1532-3072
Titre abrégé: Tissue Cell
Pays: Scotland
ID NLM: 0214745
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
Jun 2019
Jun 2019
Historique:
received:
08
11
2018
revised:
28
03
2019
accepted:
05
04
2019
entrez:
29
5
2019
pubmed:
28
5
2019
medline:
22
11
2019
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
The proper assessment of male fertility is essential for diagnosing and treating male infertility. Currently, spermiogram and Johnsen testicular biopsy score counts are used to assess male fertility. However, spermiogram is not a suitable option for non-obstructive azoospermia patients, and Johnsen testicular biopsy scores only represent localized and not the overall spermatogenesis. Whole-mount staining was a novel method for evaluating protein expression in the tissue. Thus, we explored its application in human seminiferous tubules. Testicular biopsies from 57 azoospermia patients were categorized as obstructive azoospermia (OA), maturation arrest (MA) and Sertoli-cells only syndrome (SCOS). We performed whole-mount staining of their seminiferous tubules and evaluated the spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs), differentiated spermatogonia (SG), spermatocytes (SPC) and spermatids (SD) with their respective markers (GFRA1, CD117, SYCP3, and PNA) to assess fertility. GFRA1, CD117, SYCP3, and PNA were not expressed in SCOS patients, whereas all of them were detected in OA patients. In MA patients with arrested spermatogenesis at the SPC stage, GFRA1, CD117, and SYCP3, but not PNA were expressed in the seminiferous tubules. In MA patients with arrested spermatogenesis at the spermatogonia stage, only GFRA1 was expressed in the seminiferous tubules. These results were consistent with the Johnsen testicular biopsy score counts except for one patient, where although only Sertoli cells were indicated by the score, SSCs were also detected in the whole-mounts. Collectively, whole-mount staining could be used to analyze the inherent spermatogenesis of seminiferous tubules through staining of germ cells at different stages. It offers a more accurate and promising faster method for assessing male fertility compared with traditional biopsy screening. And it could have potential value for the clinical purpose for male fertility management.
Identifiants
pubmed: 31133243
pii: S0040-8166(18)30399-9
doi: 10.1016/j.tice.2019.04.003
pii:
doi:
Types de publication
Clinical Trial
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
24-32Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.