Construction and preliminary characterization of a series of mouse and rat testis cDNA libraries

We have constructed a series of 23 cDNA libraries from mouse and rat testicular cells. These include libraries made from whole, intact adult testes; seminiferous tubule cells from adult testes; combined populations of primary spermatocytes from 18-day-old mouse testes; and isolated populations of primitive type A spermatogonia, type A spermatogonia, type B spermatogonia, preleptotene spermatocytes, leptotene plus zygotene spermatocytes, juvenile pachytene spermatocytes, adult pachytene spermatocytes, round spermatids, Sertoli cells from 6-, 8-, 17-, and 18-20- day-old mice, and peritubular cells from 18-20 day old mice, all recovered from outbred white Swiss (CD-1) mice. We also constructed libraries from whole adult testes from five other lines of mice: C57 BI6/J, C3 HEB, BDF-1, Balb/c, and 129 Sv. Finally, there are two libraries made from populations of Sertoli cells and peritubular cells isolated from testes of 20-day-old Sprague-Dawley rats. Enzymatic dissociation, followed by gradient separation or plating/lysing techniques, was used to prepare populations of specific cell types in purities of 85-98%. cDNAs were synthesized from poly A+ mRNA primed with oligo dT and unidirectionally cloned into the lambda Uni-Zap XR expression vector from Stratagene. Primary titers ranged from 2.1 x 10⁵ to 2.9 x 10⁸ plaque-forming units, and insert sizes averaged 1.0-1.2 kb. These libraries have been amplified once and submitted to the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) for distribution to interested investigators. ATCC accession numbers are provided.