Fig. 3

Aged epididymal IS displays functional and structural degeneration. (A) Relative proportions of epithelial cell subclusters. (B) Funnel plot shows the genes with downregulated and upregulated expression in the principal cells during aging (Left panel). The top 10 genes with upregulated and downregulated expression are marked. Gene Ontology terms of differentially expressed genes with upregulated expression in principal cell C0 are shown in the right panel. (C) Representative genes related to the biological process of “fertilization”. (D) Violin plots show the expression of epididymal function-related genes. (E) Immunohistochemical staining of Abhd2 in the epididymal initial segment and sperm of 3 and 21-month-old mice. (F) Expression of Col1a, Col2a, and Eln verified by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction verification (n = 6). (G) Masson staining of total collagen in the epididymal initial segment of 3 and 21-month-old mice