Department of Morphology, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2012;763:237-59.
The blood-testis barrier (BTB) is known for its ability to create an immune privilege site in the seminiferous epithelium, but less is known of the blood-epididymal barrier (BEB). It is already established that the fully functional BTB and BEB are much more complex and consist of anatomical/physical (tight junctions, basolateral and apical membranes), physiological and immunological components, which are all necessary to make a functioning barrier in the testis and epididymis. However, comparative data for metazoans suggest that an effective Sertoli cell barrier is not entirely necessary for the development of germ cells during spermatogenesis or that our knowledge about the barrier structure/function in metazoans is still immature. This chapter compares the unique barrier formed by the Sertoli cells of the testis to that formed by the apical junctional complexes of the epididymal epithelium.
血睾屏障（BTB）以其在生精上皮中形成免疫特权部位的能力而闻名，但对血附睾屏障（BEB）的了解较少。已经确定，完全功能的 BTB 和 BEB 更加复杂，包括解剖/物理（紧密连接、基底外侧和顶膜）、生理和免疫成分，所有这些都是在睾丸和附睾中形成功能屏障所必需的。然而，后生动物的比较数据表明，有效的支持细胞屏障对于精子发生过程中生殖细胞的发育并非完全必要，或者我们对后生动物屏障结构/功能的了解仍不成熟。本章比较了由睾丸支持细胞形成的独特屏障与由附睾上皮顶端连接复合体形成的屏障。
