Abstract
Previous reports have suggested that indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) activity is particularly important in mouse epididymis tissue. We show here, using reverse transcription/polymerase chain reaction assays, Northern assays, Western blotting experiments, and immunohistochemistry that IDO is indeed highly expressed in mouse epididymis, and that IDO mRNA distribution and protein location are precisely regionalized within the organ and within sub-territories of the proximal part of the epididymal duct, the so-called caput epididymidis. Within the caput epididymidis, both the principal and the apical cells have been shown to express IDO. On the contrary, tryptophan dioxygenase (TDO), a sister enzyme of IDO, is weakly and uniformly expressed in mouse epididymis and, in contrast to IDO, is also expressed in testis. In the epididymis, TDO protein expression has been found in a totally different cell type in the smooth muscle layer surrounding the epididymal tubules. Finally, IDO is not secreted into the epididymal lumen, whereas the testis-expressed TDO is present on the head of spermatozoa retrieved from the cauda epididymidis. On the basis of the various functions that have been associated with IDO/TDO, we discuss the putative impacts of IDO/TDO expression on the physiology of mammalian epididymis and spermatozoa.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Dr. Felicity Vear for critically reading the manuscript. They are also indebted to Prof. John Aitken (Newcastle, Australia) for stimulating discussions concerning the IDO/TDO data in mouse epididymis.
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This work was supported by grants from the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the French Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche. A. Britan is a recipient of doctoral support from the AMPPA2 network (Ernst Schering Research Foundation and CONRAD).
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Britan, A., Maffre, V., Tone, S. et al. Quantitative and spatial differences in the expression of tryptophan-metabolizing enzymes in mouse epididymis. Cell Tissue Res 324, 301–310 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-005-0151-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-005-0151-7