Immunohistochemical analysis of connexin43 expression in infertile human testes.

Connexin43 (Cx43) is abundantly expressed in mammalian testes and implicated in the regulation of cell-to-cell interaction between germ cells and Sertoli cells, which is essential to the normal process of spermatogenesis. In the present study, we investigated the relation between Cx43 expression and the degree of spermatogenesis in infertile human testes. Immunohistochemical analysis of Cx43 was performed on testicular biopsies from 29 patients with azoospermia (n=23) and severe oligospermia (n=6), who gave informed consent to this experiment.