Fig. 3

Changes in spatiotemporal expression of Map1a and microtubule organization during cadmium-induced testis injury. A The regiment used for the study of a CdCl₂-induced testis injury animal model with n = 4 adult rats at each time point. CdCl₂, was dissolved in saline at 20 mg/ml and administered to each adult rat (~ 300 gm b.w.) by intra-peritoneal (ip) injection using a 28-gauge needle syringe at a dose of 3 mg/kg b.w. B Map1a (green fluorescence) appeared as track-like structures that lay perpendicular to the basement membrane (annotated by dotted white line) near the base of a seminiferous tubule. Map1a stretched across the entire epithelium, co-localized with microtubules (visualized by α-tubulin staining, red fluorescence, see also merge image). MTs were truncated, possibly due to the mis-localization of Map1a, which no longer capable of promoting MT stabilization, thereby leading to microtubule catastrophe. Scale bar, 100 µm; 30 µm in magnified images, which apply to corresponding images