Abstract
Sertolin is a novel gene marker of cell-cell interactions in the rat testis
Mruk,Dolores D.; Cheng,Chuen-yan
Journal of Biological Chemistry 274(38): 27056-17068
Publication date: 1999
A novel testicular protein designated sertolin was cloned. The full-length sertolin cDNA consists of 853 base pairs with anopen reading frame of 381 base pairs coding for a 127-amino acidpolypeptide that shares limited identities with antaxin/josephinand thrombospondin proteins. Sertolin (calculated molecular mass,13,759 daltons) has two mRNA transcripts of 2.3 and 1 kilobase.A 22-amino acid peptide based on the deduced amino acid sequenceof sertolin (NH-KKEHFNLFKAASVSHLVQVVPQ) was synthesized and usedfor polyclonal antibody production. Immunoblot analysis detecteda 17-kDa immunoreactive band in the Sertoli cell cytosol. UsingSertoli-germ cell cocultures, sertolin expression was found tobe reduced by as much as 5-fold at the time when germ cells attachonto Sertoli cells but preceding the establishment of specializedinter-Sertoli-germ cell junctions. Neither FSH nor 17-hydroxy-5-androstan-3-onewas able to affect sertolin expression, whereas estradiol-17and progesterone induced a significant increase in Sertoli cellsertolin expression in vitro. In addition, interleukin-1, a germcell-derived cytokine, was also able to elicit a transient butsignificant increase in Sertoli cell sertolin expression. Sertolinexpression was also shown to increase with testicular developmentand is likely to be associated with the onset of spermatogenesis.In addition, sertolin expression increased in the testis whengeneralized inflammation was induced in adult rats by injectionof fermented yeast. These results show that sertolin will be usefulin characterizing cell-cell interactions in thetestis.
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