Ultrastructural alterations in the adluminal testicular compartment in men with varicocele

Testicular biopsies from 21 otherwise healthy men with diagnosed varicocele were processed for light and electron microscopy. Whereas germ cell morphology and tissue architecture of the basal testicular compartment appeared normal, cellular mophology and intercellular associations of the adluminal testicular compartment were variably altered. In affected tubules, spermatid nuclear and acrosomal morphology was abnormal and sloughing was evident. Spermatids were maloriented relative to Sertoli cells, and Sertoli-germ cell junctional complexes appeared to be structurally abnormal. Contradistinctly, Sertoli-Sertoli cell junctional complexes appeared unaffected. Results from this study indicate that testicular disruption in varicocele is a phenomenon of the adluminal compartment, that the Sertoli cell is, in fact, more sensitive to perturbation of the testicular environment than are germ cells, and that the Sertoli cell is the primary intratubular site of alteration leading secondarily to spermatogenic disruption.