A MURINE MODEL OF SPONTANEOUS ASPERMATOGENESIS - LINKAGE TO H-2

Experimental allergic orchitis is an organ-specific autoimmune disease characterized by inflammatory infiltrates associated with the seminif erous tubules of the testes. Orchitis is often, but not always, accomp anied by aspermatogenesis in susceptible strains of mice. In this stud y, various strains of H-2 congenic mice were used to examine the relat ionship between orchitis and aspermatogenesis, and as a result, a gene tic predisposition to spontaneous aspermatogenesis has been defined. A high correlation was seen between orchitis and aspermatogenesis in B1 0.D2/nSnJ mice, however the two conditions were uncorrelated in C57BL/ 10J mice. Subsequent analysis of C57BL/10J congenic strains showed the ir aspermatogenesis to be spontaneous, rather than due to either testi s-specific antigen or adjuvants. Further studies using other H-2 conge nic strains revealed that the aspermatogenesis seen in C57BL/10J mice is linked to H-2 and influenced by C57BL/10J background genes. Finally , spontaneous aspermatogenesis was shown not to be a function of diffe rences in the level of testicular testosterone.