Abstract
The primary cilium is a microtubule-based sensory organelle found on nearly all eukaryotic cells but little is understood about its function in the testis. We investigate the role of primary cilia on testis cells in vitro by inhibiting formation of the primary cilium with Ciliobrevin D, a cell-permeable, reversible chemical inhibitor of ATPase motor cytoplasmic dynein. We analyzed cultured cells for the presence of primary cilia and their involvement in hedgehog signaling. Primary cilia were present on 89.3 ± 2.3 % of untreated testicular somatic cells compared to 3.1 ± 2.5 % cells with primary cilia for Ciliobrevin D-treated cells. Protein levels of Gli-2 and Smoothened were lower on Western blots after suppression of cilia with Ciliobrevin D. The inhibitor did not affect centrosome localization or cell proliferation, indicating that changes were due to ablation of the primary cilium. Testicular somatic cells have the ability to form three-dimensional tubules in vitro. In vitro-formed tubules were significantly longer and wider in the control group than in the Ciliobrevin D-treated group (9.91 ± 0.35 vs. 5.540 ± 1.08 mm and 339.8 ± 55.78 vs. 127.2 ± 11.9 μm, respectively) indicating that primary cilia play a role in tubule formation. Our results establish that the inhibition of ATPase motor cytoplasmic dynein perturbs formation of primary cilia in testicular somatic cells, affects the hedgehog signaling pathway and impairs tubule formation in vitro. These findings provide evidence for a role of cilia in the testis in cell signaling and tubular morphogenesis in vitro.