[The recognition of rat epididymal epithelial cells]

The antibodies of keratin and vimentin were used as the histochemical probes determined by the immuno-fluorescent technique to recognize the rat epididymal epithelial cells in the different ages from the connective tissue both in intact epididymides and in isolated cultured cells. It also showed that an enriched suspension of epididymal epithelial cells could be obtained by sequential digestion with 0.05% trypsin and 0.1% collagenase. The morphological characteristics were appeared during the cells in culture. Therefore the epididymal epithelial cells isolated and cultured by present methods could be used as a research model to study their functions.