The commonest reproductive disorders in human males at birth (cryptorchidism, hypospadias) or young adulthood (low sperm counts, testis germ cell cancer) may comprise a ‘testicular dysgenesis syndrome’ (TDS) resulting from fetal testis dysfunction. We and others have developed an animal model for TDS, involving in utero exposure of pregnant rats to di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP), which is a common ...

Cryopreservation of male germ cells is a strategy to conserve animal species and strains of animals valuable to biomedical research. We tested whether mouse male germ cells could be cryopreserved without cryoprotection by simply freezing epididymides, testes, or whole bodies. The reproductive organs were isolated from killed mice and frozen for 1 week to 1 year at -80 degrees C before spermatoz...

BACKGROUND Germ cell transplantation results in fertile recipients and is the only available approach to functionally investigate the spermatogonial stem cell biology in mammals and probably in other vertebrates. In the current study, we describe a novel non-surgical methodology for efficient spermatogonial transplantation into the testes of adult tilapia (O. niloticus), in which endogenous spe...

The commonest reproductive disorders in human males at birth (cryptorchidism, hypospadias) or young adulthood (low sperm counts, testis germ cell cancer) may comprise a ‘testicular dysgenesis syndrome’ (TDS) resulting from fetal testis dysfunction. We and others have developed an animal model for TDS, involving in utero exposure of pregnant rats to di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP), which is a common ...

Disruption of spermatogenesis found in azoospermia and oligozoospermia is thought to be of primarily genetic origin. Sl/Sl(d) mutant mice offer a model system in which lack of transmembrane type c-kit ligand (KL2) expression on the somatic Sertoli cell surface results in disruption of spermatogenesis. We investigated the ability of adeno-, adeno-associated-, retro-, and lentiviral vectors to tr...

Spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) are undifferentiated cells that are required to maintain spermatogenesis throughout the reproductive life of mammals. Although SSC transplantation and culture provide a powerful tool to identify the mechanisms regulating SSC function, the precise signalling mechanisms governing SSC self-renewal and specific surface markers for purifying SSCs remain to be clearly...

Male obesity in reproductive-age men has nearly tripled in the past 30 y and coincides with an increase in male infertility worldwide. There is now emerging evidence that male obesity impacts negatively on male reproductive potential not only reducing sperm quality, but in particular altering the physical and molecular structure of germ cells in the testes and ultimately mature sperm. Recent da...

The testes of Drosophila melanogaster provide an important model for the study of stem cell maintenance and differentiation, meiosis, and soma-germline interactions. Testes are typically isolated from adult males 0-3 days after eclosion from the pupal case. The testes of wild-type flies are easily distinguished from other tissues because they are yellow, but the testes of white mutant flies, a ...

The conservation of endangered fish is of critical importance. Cryobanking could provide an effective backup measure for use in conjunction with the conservation of natural populations; however, methodology for cryopreservation of fish eggs and embryos has not yet been developed. The present study established a methodology capable of deriving functional eggs and sperm from frozen type A spermat...

The testicular dysgenesis syndrome (TDS) hypothesis, which proposes that common reproductive disorders of newborn and adult human males may have a common fetal origin, is largely untested. We tested this hypothesis using a rat model involving gestational exposure to dibutyl phthalate (DBP), which suppresses testosterone production by the fetal testis. We evaluated if induction of TDS via testos...