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Immunofluorescence: Conventional and Confocal Microscopy Sprague-Dawley rats (Charles River Laboratories, Wilmington, MA) were acquired, retained, and used in compliance with the National Research Council’s recommendations. Sexually mature male rats were anesthetized with Nembutal (0.5 ml i.p.; Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago, IL) and perfused via the left ventricle with PBS (0.9% NaCl in 10 mM sodium phosphate buffer, pH 7.4) followed by fixative containing 4% paraformaldehyde, 10 mM sodium periodate, 75 mM lysine, and 5% sucrose in 0.1 M sodium phosphate buffer (PLP), as described previously. Epididymis and vas deferens were cryoprotected in 30% sucrose/PBS, mounted for cryosectioning in Tissue-Tek OCT compound 4583 (Sakura Finetek USA, Inc., Torrance, CA), and quick-frozen. Sections were cut at 5 im using a Reichert-Jung 2800 Frigocut cryostat (Leica Microsystems, Inc., Bannockburn, IL) and picked up onto Superfrost/ Plus microscope slides (Fisher Scientific, Pittsburgh, PA). For indirect immunofluorescence microscopy, sections were hydrated 15 min in PBS and treated for 4 min with 1% SDS—an antigen retrieval procedure that we have previously described.