The blood-testis barrier in the rabbit after vasectomy: A light microscopic study using horseradish peroxidase

Abstract

This study was undertaken to determine whether the blood-testis barrier, in the local strain of albino rabbits, retains its structural integrity or whether it breaks down after vasectomy. The authors had earlier found that after injections of horseradish peroxidase (HRP), directly into the testicular artery, the HRP reaction product always remained outside the basement membrane of seminiferous tubules, thus implicating the basement membrane as a site of the blood-testis barrier. However, after bilateral vasectomy and repeating injections of HRP intra-arterially at weekly intervals, it was found that, as early as the first week, the HRP reaction product began to appear in the lumen of seminiferous tubules. This indicates that the blood-testis barrier, at the level of the basement membrane, had broken down after vasectomy. Our results should only be considered valid in the albino rabbit and for a situation where HRP is used as a biological tracer molecule.