In situ architecture of the intercellular organelle reservoir between epididymal epithelial cells by volume electron microscopy
Mammalian epididymal epithelial cells are crucial for sperm maturation. Historically, vacuole-like ultrastructures in epididymal epithelial cells were observed via transmission electron microscopy but were undefined. Here, we utilize volume electron microscopy (vEM) to generate 3D reconstructions of epididymal epithelial cells and identify these vacuoles as intercellular organelle reservoirs (IORs) in the lateral intercellular space (LIS), which contains protein aggregates, autophagosomes, lysosome-related organelles and mitochondrial residues. Immunolabelling of organelle markers such as P62, LC3, LAMP1 and TOMM20 confirm these findings. The IOR size or number varies across four epididymal regions and decreases with age. Rab27a mutant mice exhibit reduced IORs in the caput epididymis and a subfertility phenotype, suggesting the involvement of Rab27a in the formation of IORs. Furthermore, we observe the presence of IORs between intestinal epithelial cells besides epididymis. Amino acid transporters at IOR edges suggest dynamic protein recycling. Our findings reveal that the IOR is an important structure critical for organelle turnover and recycling outside epithelial cells with limited self-degradation capabilities.
Authors
- Shumin Duan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0466-1821)
- Kin Lam Fok (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3038-1337)
- Gangcai Xie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8286-2987)
- Xiao Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8788-8350)
- Sha Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5731-5634)
- Jiansheng Guo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3459-4030)
- Hao Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8319-8101)
- Shushu Xu
- Jun Yu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3109-4102)
- Ren-Jeng Pei
- Huifang Lou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1793-9458)
- Xiaofeng Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3946-5791)
- Feng Qiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1704-7257)
- Huixia Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8566-7143)
- Weizhen Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9479-6649)
- Ting Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6166-0972)
- Mei Ye (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9393-3680)
- Mengya Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1001-0427)
- Li Jin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4648-0500)
- Shiqin Huang
- Yi‐Wen Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5196-7030)
- Xia Li
- Chaoye Ma
- Hangjun Wu
Institutions
- Chinese University of Hong Kong (HK)
- Peking University Shenzhen Hospital (CN)
- Women's Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University (CN)
- Zhejiang University (CN)
- Hainan Medical University (CN)
- Guangzhou Medical University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-02-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56807-9
- Citations
- 6
- Primary Topic
- Extracellular vesicles in disease
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.84
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China