Table III.

Typical conditions used for culturing the three human Sertoli cell samples for experiments reported in this study.

Donor age (years)	Thawing of cells	Time needed to reach ∼70–80% confluency (days)
		P1	P2	P3	P4	P5
36	Time 0	16	24	8	63	14	No FBS
23		8	9	16	24		With FBS
12		11	14	21	53

P, passage number. For all the experiments reported herein, human Sertoli cells were used on the fourth or fifth passage. In the absence of FBS, human Sertoli cells were also proliferative, but it took longer culture for them to reach ∼70–80% confluence. Sertoli cells obtained from the 12-year-old subject are differentiated since human Sertoli cells cease to divide in vivo by puberty at 12 years of age (Sharpe et al., 2003) without exposure to serum, and Sertoli cells from this subject displayed similar morphological characteristics as of the other two subjects, and the responses of Sertoli cells from this subject to Cd and BPA were also similar to the other two subjects as reported herein (see Figs 1, 3 and 4).