Expression of type I and III collagen during morphogenesis of fetal rat testis and ovary.

The distribution of interstitial collagen type I and III was studied immunocytochemically and ultrastructurally in the fetal rat testis and ovary from the undifferentiated stage (day 12) until birth. The results suggest that there is a correlation between the differentiation, organization, and abundance of the mesenchyme and the differentiation of the testicular vs. ovarian cords. Type III collagen was already present in the undifferentiated gonadal mesenchyme, and it appeared at an early stage around the organizing gonadal cords. Type I collagen appeared later in a similar mesenchymal distribution as type III collagen. Fragmentation of the subepithelial basement membrane in the gonads starting morphogenesis was considered to indicate that the surface epithelium participates in the gonadal cord formation. The expression of type III collagen at first on the surface of the developing testicular cords and later around the ovarian cords suggests that the mesenchymal premyoid cells are actively involved in the male cord formation. Focal discontinuities were found in the basement membrane of the ovarian cords, which in part were separated from each other by a ramified and relatively sparse mesenchyme. A complex linkage between the cytoskeleton and the extracellular matrix is illustrated both in the cord forming Sertoli and granulosa cells, and in the adjacent mesenchymal cells. Depletion of the mesenchyme and the basement membrane around the germ cell-granulosa cell associations of the wide ovarian medullary cords may be causal for their subsequent degeneration.