Sources of the porcine testis innervation

Abstract

This study was carried out on three adult male pigs of the large White Polish breed weighing 110-130 kg each. The animals were anaesthetised and injected with retrograde tracer Fast Blue (FB) into right testis. Three weeks later, the pigs were deeply anaesthetised and perfused transcardially with fixative (4% paraformaldehyde in 0.1 M phosphate buffer pH 7.4). Collected ganglia were cut with freezing microtome into 12-μm-thick sections. The sections were examined under a fluorescent microscope (Zeiss). FB-positive neurones were found in pelvic ganglia (anterior pelvic ganglion) (15.4% of all FB(+) neurones), prevertebral ganglia (caudal mesenteric, testicular, aortico-renal and renal ganglia) (59% of all FB(+) neurones), sympathetic chain ganglia (last four lumbar and first three sacral ganglia) (18.1% of all FB(+) neurones) and dorsal root ganglia (DRG) (first three lumbar and first three sacral ganglia) (7.4% of all FB(+) neurones). The majority of FB-positive nerve cell bodies were observed in ipsilateral ganglia, but they were also found in contralateral ganglia (approximately 85% and 15% respectively). Thus, FB-positive neurones were located in the left prevertebral, sympathetic chain and DRG, but surprisingly, they were absent in left anterior pelvic ganglia.

Sensory innervation of the guinea pig colon and rectum compared using retrograde tracing and immunohistochemistry

“…27 In contrast to the distal colon, the guinea pig rectum was innervated by both lumbar and sacral spinal afferent neurons, with a distinctive bimodal distribution. This pattern of innervation is similar to that described previously for pelvic organs including mouse colorectum 28,29 rat colorectum, [30][31][32] pig bladder, 33 porcine testis, 34 porcine vas deferens 35 , and mouse uterus. 36 Thoraco-lumbar spinal afferents probably reach the rectum by projecting caudally via hypogastric nerves 37,38 to pelvic ganglia, then into the bowel via rectal nerves.…”

Caudal mesenteric ganglion in the sheep – macroanatomical and immunohistochemical study

“…Bilateral ganglia show tendency to fuse, forming the impaired structure in the pig and horse or 1-4 groups of neurons in the cat (Nickel et al 2004). The data regarding the pig are in contrast to our previous studies involving tracer investigations of genital organs and dealing with immunohistochemical properties of neurones innervating these organs (Kaleczyc et al 1994, Kaleczyc et al 1995, Kaleczyc 1998, Klimczuk and Kaleczyc 2010, Sienkiewicz 2010b. In these studies we always found the CaMG as the paired structure.…”

Decreased Sensory Responses in Osteocalcin Null Mutant Mice Imply Neuropeptide Function

“…Our present data are focused on the sensory ganglia, but we have done some preliminary investigation of gene expression in parts of the mouse brain and found results consistent with the human data represented in the Su submission. It is important to note that pancreas (Schwartz et al 2011), adipocytes (Bartness and Bamshad 1998;Osaka et al 1998), and testes (Sienkiewicz 2010) have significant interaction with dorsal root ganglia. These tissues in the mouse are reportedly regulated by OC that presumably originates from osteoclastic bone resorption (Ferron et al 2008;Ferron et al 2010;Lee et al 2007;Oury et al 2011).…”