Sertoli cell junctional complexes in gossypol-treated neonatal and adult guinea pigs

The effect of gossypol, an experimental male contraceptive agent, on the development and maintenance of the blood-testis barrier was determined by feeding gossypol daily to prepubertal and adult guinea pigs, and then examining their testes by electron microscopy of thin sections and freeze-fracture replicas. In guinea pigs of 10 to 30 and 10 to 40 days of age that were fed gossypol, impermeable continuous junctional zones did not develop between adjacent Sertoli cells. Compartmentalization of germ cells in the seminiferous epithelium, therefore, was nonexistent. These findings were obtained by use of the sterol-binding polyene, filipin, used as a low molecular weight tracer in combination with freeze-fracture. In general, the seminiferous tubules lacked lumina and spermatogenesis did not progress beyond the pachytene spermatocyte stage. In adult guinea pigs fed gossypol daily for five weeks, continuous zonules at the base of the seminiferous epithelium appeared intact and were impermeable to filipin. Discontinuous zonules found higher in the epithelium showed distensions between interrupted junctional strands and were permeated by filipin. In addition, vacuolated spaces between Sertoli cells and clumps of heterochromatin were conspicuous in some of the Sertoli cell nuclei. Spermatogenesis was disturbed in about 10% of the seminiferous tubules examined. These perturbations included exfoliation of round and elongated spermatids with concomitant formation of multi-nucleated giant cells. Spermatozoa from these adult male guinea pigs were immotile. These findings suggest that, in neonatal animals, gossypol appears to prevent the maturation of Sertoli cells and this effect is expressed as the failure of focal Sertoli cell tight junctional strands to assemble into continuous zonules. In adult animals, gossypol appears to have no effect on the maintenance of the blood-testis barrier.