Fig. 8

Immunostaining of connexin 43 in human testicular biopsy specimens. (A) In the seminiferous tubule with normal spermatogenesis, a linear staining pattern can be observed in basal regions above spermatogonia (arrows), which partly extends between germ cells located further adluminal (black arrowheads). (B) Tubules with germ cell neoplasia in situ show several basally located brown stained dots arranged between degenerated germ cells and remaining Sertoli cells (arrows)—an exact assignment to one of the two cell types can only be made speculatively. A similar reaction pattern can be seen in the center of the tubule (white arrowheads) where displaced Sertoli cells are located. (C) Seminoma cells are negative, only remaining tubule-like structures that still contain Sertoli cells display a linear but interrupted staining pattern along the basal edge (arrows). Negative controls do not display any immunopositive reaction (inserts). Scale bars = 50 μm