Organization of actin filaments in peritubular myoid cell of wky and shr rats.

LOSINNO A. D; BERTOLDI M.V; LÓPEZ L.A..

San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina.

Congreso; XLV Reunión Anual Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (SAIB).; 2009

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular

Testicular peritubular myoid cells (PMCs), from seminiferous tubules (ST) of rodent form a monolayer between two basement membranes. These cells are contractile and express the cytoskeletal markers of true smooth muscle, such as alpha-isoactin, F-actin, and myosin. It is known that hypertension alters smooth muscle cells of blood vessel. The aim of this work was to analyze the organization of actin filaments (AF) of PMCs from testis of a hypertensive rat (SHR) and to compare with the organization of AF of PMCs from normotensive rat (WKY) using confocal microscopy. Segments of ST from VII-VIII states were isolated, fixed with paraformaldehyde and incubated with antibody anti alfa actin conjugated with Cy3. The height of Z axis of PMCs-WKY was 3 ± 0.06μm (x ± SEM) and PMCs-SHR was 4.82 ± 0.4μm. The AF of PMCs from WKY and SHR rats were organized in two layers, one external (upper nucleus) with thick AF parallel to tubular axis and other internal (underneath nucleus toward to the seminiferous epithelium) with thin AF perpendicular to tubular axis. The external layer of AF in PMCs-WKY are distributed homogeneously in the whole cytoplasm and frequently are organized in bundles. However, in PMCs-SHR, the AF are restricted to the nuclear zone without formation of bundles. These results indicate that the cell morphology of PMCs, a kind of not vascular smooth cells, is affected by hypertension.