Fig. 2: Male mice with Kindlin-2 specific knockout in Sertoli cells are infertile.

A Immunofluorescence staining for Sox9 (red) or TRA98 (green) in WT and KO testes samples at 2 day, 2-, 4- and 12-W old. The nuclei were stained blue with DAPI. KO mice showed a phenotype corresponding to an age-dependent loss of GCs in seminiferous tubules. By 12 W, KO seminiferous tubules are filled only with Sox9 positive SCs, whereas completely loss of GCs. Scale bar, 50 μm. B Quantitation of Sox9 positive SCs per tubule in testes of the WT and KO mice at indicated age point, 6 tubules were counted per section. The data were expressed as the mean ± S.D. Statistical analyses were performed using Student’s t-test at indicated time point. The variance was similar between the groups. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. C Quantitation of TRA98 positive GCs per tubule in testes of the WT and KO mice at indicated age point, 6 tubules were counted per section. The data were expressed as the mean ± S.D. Statistical analyses were performed using Student’s t-test at indicated time point. The variance was similar between the groups. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. D HE staining of epididymis of 8 W WT and KO mice. The epididymis of WT mice was filled with mature sperms (black arrows). However, no spermatocytes or mature sperms were detectable in epididymis of KO mice (red arrow). Scale bar, 50 μm. E Fertility test that KO males crossed to WT females was detected. Reproductive ability of the KO line was tracked over 160 days breeding period. Fertility test were showed by percent of pregnant females. n = 6 for KO or WT males. ***p = 0.0003.