Spermatogenesis is the process by which spermatozoa are generated from spermatogonia. This cell population is heterogeneous, with self-renewing spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) and progenitor spermatogonia that will continue on a path of differentiation. Only SSCs have the ability to regenerate and sustain spermatogenesis. This makes the testis a good model to investigate stem cell biology. The...

spermatogonial stem cell (ssc) technologies provide multiple opportunities for research in the field of biotechnology and regenerative medicine. the therapeutic use of embryonic stem cells (escs) is restricted due to severe ethical and immunological concerns. therefore, we need a new pluripotent cell type. despite well-known role of germ cells in the gametogenesis, some facts apparently show th...

Although germline cells can form multipotential embryonic stem (ES)/embryonic germ (EG) cells, these cells can be derived only from embryonic tissues, and such multipotent cells have not been available from neonatal gonads. Here we report the successful establishment of ES-like cells from neonatal mouse testis. These ES-like cells were phenotypically similar to ES/EG cells except in their genom...

objective(s):to culture thein vitro mouse embryonic stem cells (mescs) and to direct their  differentiation to germ-line cells; in present study we used a vector backbone containing the fusion construct stra8-egfp to select differentiated es cells that entered meiosis.  retinoic acid was used to differentiate embryonic stem cells to germ cells. materials and methods: a fragment of stra8 gene pr...

objective(s): although many researchers have confirmed induction of germ cells from bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (bmmscs), there are no reports that confirm spontaneous differentiation of germ cells from bmmscs. in this study, we have evaluated the effect of adult sertoli cell condition medium (sccm) as a mutative factor in the induction of germ cells from bmmscs. materials and methods: b...

BioTechniques 349 Embryonic stem (ES) cells were established from the inner cell mass of blastocysts and have been shown to spontaneously differentiate into multiple cell types representative of all three embryonic germ layers, both in teratomas after grafting or in vitro under appropriate conditions (1,2). ES cells can be maintained in their pluripotent state if cultured in the presence of leu...

Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) such as embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells represent a promising cell type to gain novel insights into human biology. Understanding the differentiation process of PSCs in vitro may allow for the identification of cell extrinsic/intrinsic factors, driving the specification process toward all cell types of the three germ layers, which may be simil...

Recently, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have been generated in vivo from reprogrammable mice. These in vivo iPSCs display features of totipotency, i.e., they differentiate into the trophoblast lineage, as well as all 3 germ layers. Here, we developed a new reprogrammable mouse model carrying an Oct4-GFP reporter gene to facilitate the detection of reprogrammed pluripotent stem cells. W...

Enrichment of spermatogonial stem cells is important for studying their self-renewal and differentiation. Although germ cell-derived colonies (GDCs) have been successfully cultured from neonatal pig testicular cells under 31°C conditions, the short period of in vitro maintenance (<2 months) limited their application to further investigations. To develop a culture method that allows for in vitro...

Human embryonic stem cell differentiation towards various cell types belonging to ecto-, endo- and mesodermal cell lineages has been demonstrated, with high efficiency rates using standardized differentiation protocols. However, germ cell differentiation from human embryonic stem cells has been very inefficient so far. Even though the influence of various growth factors has been evaluated, the ...