Sulfhydryl oxidase immunoreactivity in seminiferous tubules of infertile men.

Sulfhydryl oxidase (SOx) immunoreactivity was investigated in the seminiferous epithelium of human biopsy material from the testes of 33 adult men with disturbed fertility. SOx immunoreactivity was expressed in normal seminiferous epithelium in type-A spermatogonia (27 +/- 4% of all spermatogonia) (n = 4), in spermatocytes and round spermatids. Mature spermatozoa as well as Sertoli cells were unlabelled. Within the interstitium, Leydig cells were immunopositive. In biopsies of oligozoospermic men showing hypospermatogenesis (n = 24), an increase in labelled spermatogonia up to more than 90% was observed in biopsies, where seminiferous epithelia revealed only spermatogonia and Sertoli cells. Within the group of oligozoospermic patients there was a significant increase of labelled spermatogonia from 43 +/- 13% (greater than 20 mill/ejaculate) (n = 7) to 55 +/- 16% (less than 20 and greater than 10 mill/ejaculate) (n = 6) to 68 +/- 8% (less than 5 mill/ejaculate) (n = 11) and a significant (P = 0.01) decrease of score count from 7.0 +/- 2.7 to 2.0 +/- 1.8. In this group the increase of labelled spermatogonia was correlated with sperm concentrations in the ejaculate (correlation coefficient: r = -0.6). In biopsies of azoospermic patients showing maturation arrest at the level of spermatocytes or spermatids (n = 5) the percentage of labelled spermatogonia was within the range of 24% to 59%.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)