Structural Alterations of Epididymal Epithelial Cells in Cathepsin A—Deficient Mice Affect the Blood‐Epididymal Barrier and Lead to Altered Sperm Motility
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Past studies have shown that the epithelial lining of the epididymis in adult mice deficient in protective protein cathepsin A (PPCA -/-) becomes swollen and vacuolated as a result of an accumulation of pale lysosomes, some very large, in addition to the presence of an abundance of macrophages infiltrating the intertubular spaces. The purpose of this study was to assess the integrity of the epididymal epithelial-blood barrier in these altered mice by characterizing the distribution of claudins (Cldns) and the leakiness of tight junctions to lanthanum nitrate. A second goal was to characterize sperm motility behavior in PPCA -/- mice using computer-assisted sperm analyses (CASA). The results indicated that lanthanum nitrate penetrated apical junctional complexes between adjacent epithelial cells and entered the epididymal lumen in PPCA -/- mice but not in control PPCA +/+ mice. Immunostaining for Cldns 1, 3, 8, and 10 revealed unique patterns of expression based on cell type and region specificity in PPCA +/+ mice, which were much different in PPCA -/- mice. PPCA -/- mice showed reduced intensities of immunoreactions, complete absence of immunoreactions, and appearance of atypical cytoplasmic immunoreactions. CASA indicated that sperm counts in the PPCA -/- mice were 70% reduced, and among other problems, there was a fourfold higher percentage of static sperm in PPCA -/- mice compared with controls. These results suggest that PPCA deficiency causes structural changes to the blood-epididymal barrier as evidenced by lanthanum nitrate and Cldns expression that affects the luminal environment of the epididymis, resulting in altered sperm motility.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".