Morphometric Analysis of Testis Cord Formation in Sox9-EGFP Mice

Overview

Journal Dev Dyn

Publisher Wiley

Specialty Anatomy & Histology

Date 2009 Apr 23

PMID 19384968

Citations 35

Authors

Liesl Nel-Themaat

Tegy J Vadakkan

Ying Wang

Mary E Dickinson

Haruhiko Akiyama

Richard R Behringer

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Sox9-EGFP knockin mice were generated to label Sertoli cells and visualize testis cord formation during development. Confocal microscopy and morphometric analysis of developing cords were performed. Serial histological sections were used for three-dimensional cord reconstruction. Initially, gonad length decreased from embryonic day (E) 11.5 to E13.5, but increased thereafter, while gonad width doubled every 12 hours from E11.5 through E14.5. At E12.5, the average number of cords was 12.5, whereas this decreased to 10.4 at E13.5 and E14.5. Cord number at a given time point varied between gonads and influenced dimensions. The initial cords that formed were complex and branches were common. Time-lapse imaging revealed an intricate behavior of the Sertoli-germ cell mass and cellular exchange between connected neighboring cords. These results suggest that cord formation is a highly dynamic process that subsequently becomes refined to establish the final number of seminiferous tubule precursors.

Citing Articles

A comparative analysis of genes differentially expressed between rete testis cells and Sertoli cells of the mouse testis.

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Hypomorphic and dominant-negative impact of truncated SOX9 dysregulates Hedgehog-Wnt signaling, causing campomelia.

Au T, Yip R, Wynn S, Tan T, Fu A, Geng Y Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022; 120(1):e2208623119.

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Two complementary approaches for efficient isolation of Sertoli cells for transcriptomic analysis.

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Live imaging approach of dynamic multicellular responses in ERK signaling during vertebrate tissue development.

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