Stability of the intra-epithelial component of the blood-testis barrier in epinephrine-induced testicular degeneration in Syrian hamsters.

Adult male Syrian hamsters were given daily intraperitoneal injections of epinephrine (1.0 mg/kg) and papaverine, a vasodilator, (60 mg/kg) for a period of ten days. After the treatment period, lanthanum and horseradish peroxidase tracer studies were used to examine the intra-epithelial component of the blood-testis barrier. Degenerating tubules often exhibited only Sertoli cells and spermatogonia, or Sertoli cells alone. Sertoli cell processes in the degenerating tubules often arched out from the main cell body to make contact with other Sertoli cell processes, forming a series of vacuole-like spaces in the germinal epithelium, adluminal to the Sertoli-Sertoli junctions. At the site of contact between these arching Sertoli cell processes one to eight tight junctions had formed with hexagonal arrays of Sertoli cell cytoplasmic filaments located immediately adjacent to these junctions. Cisternae of the Sertoli cell endoplasmic reticulum lay deep to the layer of cytoplasmic filaments. It appeared that these junctions had originated after the expulsion of the germinal elements of the seminiferous epithelium. Penetration of the tracers in the degenerating seminiferous tubules was prevented by what appeared to be normal Sertoli-Sertoli junctions located between apposed Sertoli cells, adluminal to the remaining spermatogonia when these resisted degeneration, or just adluminal to the basal lamina in those tubules in which spermatogonia were absent.