Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, 37134 Verona, Italy.
Department of Surgery, Dentistry, Paediatrics and Gynaecology, Paediatric Fertility Lab, Woman and Child Hospital, Division of Pediatric Surgery, University of Verona, 37134 Verona, Italy.
Cells. 2022 Jan 28;11(3):450. doi: 10.3390/cells11030450.
Testicular torsion is a pathology that occurs in young males generally before the age of 25. Despite surgery representing the only effective approach, there is still a need to identify a marker that can predict whether a preserved testicle will be functional. In addition, no therapeutic approach is currently considered in the post-operative phase. Through an approach based on the in vitro culture of a tissue strictly linked to the testicle, the gubernaculum, we defined the healthy state of the organ and the possible responsiveness to a therapy used in the andrology field, chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Firstly, we optimized a protocol to obtain viable cells starting from a small piece of gubernacular tissue harvested during surgery with the aim to amplify cells in vitro. Intriguingly, only for a patient whose testicle had been removed during surgery due to an excessive necrotic area, gubernacular cells were not able to grow in culture. These data support the possibility of exploiting the gubernaculum to evaluate the healthy state of the testicle. Then, as we demonstrate that gubernacular cells express a luteinizing hormone receptor, to which hCG is specific, we analyzed the cellular response to hCG treatment on in vitro cultured cells derived from patients affected by testicular torsion. Our study opens the way for the possibility of evaluating testicle wellbeing after derotation through in vitro culture of a small piece of gubernaculum together with predicting the response to the treatment with hCG, which can have a positive effect on cell proliferation and vascularization.
睾丸扭转是一种发生在年轻男性中的疾病，通常发生在 25 岁之前。尽管手术是唯一有效的治疗方法，但仍需要确定一个可以预测保留的睾丸是否具有功能的标志物。此外，目前在术后阶段还没有考虑任何治疗方法。通过一种基于与睾丸紧密相关的组织——精索的体外培养方法，我们定义了器官的健康状态和对一种在男科领域使用的治疗方法——绒毛膜促性腺激素（hCG）的可能反应性。首先，我们优化了一种从手术中采集的小块精索组织中获得有活力细胞的方案，目的是在体外扩增细胞。有趣的是，只有在一个因过度坏死区域而在手术中切除睾丸的患者中，精索细胞在培养中无法生长。这些数据支持了利用精索来评估睾丸健康状态的可能性。然后，由于我们证明了精索细胞表达黄体生成素受体，而 hCG 是特异性的，我们分析了来自睾丸扭转患者的体外培养细胞对 hCG 治疗的细胞反应。我们的研究为通过体外培养一小块精索来评估扭转复位后睾丸健康状况以及预测对 hCG 治疗的反应提供了可能性，hCG 治疗可能对细胞增殖和血管生成产生积极影响。
