BACKGROUND Signaling mechanisms involved in early human germ cell development are largely unknown and believed to be similar to mouse germ cell development; however, there may be species specific differences. KIT ligand (KITL) and Bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP4) are necessary in mouse germ cell development and may play an important role in human germ cell development. METHODS KITL signali...

The ovarian Growing Teratoma Syndrome (GTS) is a rare condition among patients with primary Non-Seminomatous Germ Cell Tumours (NSGCT) presenting with enlarging masses during or after appropriate chemotherapy in the context of normalized serum markers. Several modes of dissemination are suggested, with the most frequent site of metastasis being the peritoneum. We report a case of a young patien...

objective: cryopreservation of immature testicular tissue should be considered as an important factor for fertility preservation in young boys with cancer. the objective of this study is to investigate whether immature testicular tissue of mice can be successfully cryopreserved using a simple vitrification procedure to maintain testicular cell viability, proliferation, and differentiation capac...

Segregation of the germ line from the soma is an essential event for transmission of genetic information across generations in all sexually reproducing animals. Although some well-studied systems such as Drosophila and Xenopus use maternally inherited germ determinants to specify germ cells, most animals, including mice, appear to utilize zygotic inductive cell signals to specify germ cells dur...

During germ-cell migration in the mouse, the dynamics of embryo growth cause many germ cells to be left outside the range of chemoattractive signals from the gonad. At E10.5, movie analysis has shown that germ cells remaining in the midline no longer migrate directionally towards the genital ridges, but instead rapidly fragment and disappear. Extragonadal germ cell tumors of infancy, one of the...