The spatiotemporal expression changes of 16 epididymis-specific genes induced by testosterone, heat, and combination treatment in cynomolgus monkey.

The experimental infertility model of treatments involving testicular warming, testosterone implant, and a combination of the two was developed to confirm a synergistic action induced by the combination treatment on germ cell apoptosis in cynomolgus monkey testis. Using this model, the spatiotemporal expression changes of 16 reported or novel genes in epididymis were investigated to examine the treatment's effect on epididymal genes. It was demonstrated that these region-specific genes, some of which were not regionally fixed, changed greatly with these treatments. The expression levels of these epididymal genes fluctuated, and the expression of most of the genes returned to nearly normal level at the end of treatments. Moreover, the expression changes resulting from the combination treatment were not more significant than those resulting from the single treatment. This suggests that the combination treatment has an antagonistic action on the expression of epididymal genes and that its effect is not as adverse on epididymis as that of the two single treatments.