FIGURE 1.

Expression patterns of DEFB114 mRNA and protein in the human epididymis. a, amino acid sequences of five mature human β-defensins (DEFB114, DEFB101, DEFB102, DEFB103, and DEFB104) were aligned using the program ClustalX (48). The identities are indicated by the histograms below, where larger histograms correlate with higher identities. Asterisks and the shaded letters indicate conserved cysteine residues. DEFB114 expression in the caput (Cap), corpus (Cor), and cauda (Cau) regions of the human epididymis was determined by RT-PCR (b) and Western blot (WB) (c). The protein extract was loaded at 50 μg/lane, and the antibody was diluted at 1:1,000. d, immunostaining of the DEFB114 protein in the caput, corpus, and cauda segments of the human epididymis. The brown color in the tissues indicates a high level of DEFB114 expression.