Fibronectin synthesis is a marker for peritubular cell contaminants in Sertoli cell-enriched cultures.

With indirect immunofluorescent microscopic techniques, we have shown that fibronectin is distributed primarily in or along the basal lamina of the seminiferous tubule boundary tissue in sections of testes from 20-day-old rats. Purified rat Sertoli cell-enriched aggregates, maintained in culture in the presence or absence of serum, exhibit no detectable immunofluorescence with fibronectin antibody, whereas purified peritubular cells in culture do have a positive reaction to fibronectin antibody. Peritubular cells in culture incorporate [35S] methionine into fibronectin which can be immunoprecipitated with a fibronectin antiserum, but Sertoli cells do not. We have used various criteria to estimate the degree of purity of Sertoli cell-enriched preparations. The presence of peritubular myoid cells in conventional Sertoli cell-enriched aggregates, cultured in the presence or absence of serum, can be detected with transmission electron microscopic examination, by the Feulgen staining procedure, and by the immunocytochemical identification of fibronectin. We describe a technique to purify Sertoli cells in conventional Sertoli cell-enriched preparations by treatment with hyaluronidase, resulting in a lesser number of peritubular cells by the above criteria, even in preparations cultured in the presence of serum. Data presented suggest that some of the products previously attributed exclusively to Sertoli cells in Sertoli cell-enriched preparations, particularly those cultured in the presence of serum, may have been contributed by peritubular cells.