Single-cell Transcriptome Atlas of Testis Aging

Unhealthy aging of testis seriously affects fertility and life quality of older men, while its interventions depend on in-depth knowledge of the molecular and functional changes of various testicular cell types. Here, we profile human testicular single-cell transcriptomes from young adult, healthy old men and late-onset hypogonadism (LOH) patients, and identified the somatic cells underwent a greater change than germ cells. All donors signed their consent after being fully informed of the goal and characteristics of our study. Aged testis samples (> 55-year-old) were obtained from 4 old male donors who underwent surgical castration for the purpose of prostate cancer treatment. Factors that might affect normal testicular function, such as a history of antiandrogen medications, diabetes mellitus, metastatic testicular malignancy, and abnormal BMI, were excluded. The two LOH patients were denoised according to the presence of at least three sexual symptoms associated with a total testosterone level of less than 3.2 ng/ml and a free testosterone level of less than 64 pg/ml