XY BODY FORMATION DURING RAT SPERMATOGENESIS - AN IMMUNOCYTOCHEMICAL STUDY USING ANTIBODIES AGAINST XY BODY-ASSOCIATED PROTEINS

The process of formation of the XY body during meiotic prophase was in vestigated by immunocytochemistry on cryosections of pubertal rat test es using antibodies against three different XY body-associated protein s. Here we show that these proteins are detectable at only partially o verlapping temporal windows. These findings provide the first evidence that the previously described morphological changes in the structure of the XY body that occur during meiotic prophase are accompanied by c onsiderable changes in its protein composition.