A new approach to study the architectural arrangement of spermatogenic stages revealed little evidence of a partial wave along the length of human seminiferous tubules.

Although evidence of the spermatogenic wave in humans has been reported, little is known about the architectural arrangement of stages along the length of tubules in men with varied rates of sperm production. To conduct these studies, methodology is needed to stage relatively long lengths of straight portions of tubules in several men. Testes obtained at autopsy were glutaraldehyde perfused. Six men representing a range of daily sperm production were selected for this study. Wedges composed of groups of seminiferous tubules attached to the rete testis and separated by testicular septa were teased apart from the remaining testicular tissue, fixed in osmium, and oriented during Epon embedding. This orientation allowed for sections to be cut perpendicular to the length of the group of tubules, beginning at the end near where the tubules had been attached to the rete testis. Also, a tubule isolated away from the rete testis was oriented for perpendicular sectioning for one of the men. Several serial sections were cut at a setting of 22 microns, and each was optically sectioned approximately at 7 microns and photographed using Nomarski optics. Because many cytoplasmic and nuclear features of spermatogonia, spermatocytes, and spermatids were distinguished in photomicrographs produced by Nomarski optics, this optical system facilitated the identification of stages of the spermatogenic cycle in human seminiferous tubules.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)