Center for Biomedical Research, Population Council, New York, NY 10065, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Oct 19;107(42):17998-8003. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1007047107. Epub 2010 Oct 4.
In mammalian testes, the blood-testis barrier (BTB) or Sertoli cell barrier created by specialized junctions between Sertoli cells near the basement membrane confers an immunological barrier by sequestering the events of meiotic division and postmeiotic germ cell development from the systemic circulation. The BTB is constituted by coexisting tight junctions (TJs), basal ectoplasmic specializations, desmosomes, and gap junctions. Despite being one of the tightest blood-tissue barriers, the BTB has to restructure cyclically during spermatogenesis. A recent study showed that gap junction protein connexin 43 (Cx43) and desmosome protein plakophilin-2 are working synergistically to modulate the BTB integrity by regulating the distribution of TJ-associated proteins at the Sertoli-Sertoli cell interface. However, the precise role of Cx43 in regulating the cyclical restructuring of junctions remains obscure. In this report, the calcium switch and the bisphenol A (BPA) models were used to induce junction restructuring in primary cultures of Sertoli cells isolated from rat testes that formed a TJ-permeability barrier that mimicked the BTB in vivo. The removal of calcium by EGTA perturbed the Sertoli cell tight junction barrier, but calcium repletion allowed the "resealing" of the disrupted barrier. However, a knockdown of Cx43 in Sertoli cells by RNAi significantly reduced the kinetics of TJ-barrier resealing. These observations were confirmed using the bisphenol A model in which the knockdown of Cx43 by RNAi also perturbed the TJ-barrier reassembly following BPA removal. In summary, Cx43 is crucial for TJ reassembly at the BTB during its cyclic restructuring throughout the seminiferous epithelial cycle of spermatogenesis.
在哺乳动物的睾丸中,由基膜附近的支持细胞之间的特化连接形成的血睾屏障(BTB)或支持细胞屏障,通过将减数分裂和减数后精原细胞发育的事件与全身循环隔离开来,赋予了免疫屏障。BTB 由共存的紧密连接(TJ)、基底质膜特殊化、桥粒和缝隙连接组成。尽管它是最紧密的血组织屏障之一,但在精子发生过程中,BTB 必须周期性地重建。最近的一项研究表明,缝隙连接蛋白 connexin 43 (Cx43) 和桥粒蛋白 plakophilin-2 通过调节 TJ 相关蛋白在支持细胞-支持细胞界面的分布,协同调节 BTB 完整性。然而,Cx43 在调节连接的周期性重建中的精确作用仍然不清楚。在本报告中,使用钙转换和双酚 A(BPA)模型来诱导从大鼠睾丸分离的原代培养的支持细胞中的连接重建,形成了一种 TJ 通透性屏障,该屏障模拟了体内的 BTB。用 EGTA 去除钙会破坏支持细胞紧密连接屏障,但钙补充允许破坏的屏障“重新密封”。然而,通过 RNAi 敲低支持细胞中的 Cx43 显著降低了 TJ 屏障重新密封的动力学。这些观察结果通过使用 BPA 模型得到了证实,在该模型中,通过 RNAi 敲低 Cx43 也会破坏 BPA 去除后 TJ 屏障的重新组装。总之,Cx43 对于精子发生过程中在整个生精上皮周期中 BTB 的 TJ 重新组装是至关重要的。