In vivo analysis of germ cell apoptosis reveals the existence of stage-specific 'social' control of germ cell death in the seminiferous epithelium

Abstract

It has become clear in recent years that programmed cell death is regulated during development by signals from other cells. Nevertheless, compared to the 'social' control of cell proliferation, relatively little is known about the 'social' control of cell death in other systems. Since in a previous study we showed that induced germ cell apoptosis occurs at specific stages of the spermatogenic cycle, in this study we aimed to ascertain the existence of supracellular control of germ cell death during spermatogenesis. Therefore, the TUNEL technique has been used to analyse whether all of the different germ cell types are induced to die at these specific stages in animals injected intratesticularly with one of several inducers of apoptosis. Our findings suggest that all of the investigated agents trigger apoptosis in all the diverse progenies of germ cells existing at stages I, XII or XIV of the spermatogenic cycle. In contrast, at most other stages the number of apoptotic cells was similar to that found in control animals. These data are consistent with the existence of an intercellular control of germ cell death during spermatogenesis. We conclude that the seminiferous epithelium provides a suitable in vivo model to study the mechanisms underlying the 'social' control apoptosis.