Male infertility: new stem cell technique makes sperms in a dish

Photo Credit: Zhou,Wand and Yuan
et al./Cell Stem Cell 2016

Source: Cell Press | Summary: Scientists have finally succeeded in creating functioning sperm from mice in the laboratory. To accomplish this feat, the researchers coaxed mouse embryonic stem cells to turn into functional sperm-like cells, which were then injected into egg cells to produce fertile mouse offspring. The work provides a platform for generating sperm cells that could one day be used to treat male infertility in humans.

"Scientists in China have finally succeeded in creating functioning sperm from mice in the laboratory. To accomplish this feat, the researchers coaxed mouse embryonic stem cells to turn into functional sperm-like cells, which were then injected into egg cells to produce fertile mouse offspring. The work, reported February 25 in Cell Stem Cell, provides a platform for generating sperm cells that could one day be used to treat male infertility in humans.

"Reproducing germ cell development in vitro has remained a central goal in both reproductive biology and reproductive medicine," says co-senior study author Jiahao Sha of Nanjing Medical University. "We established a robust, stepwise approach that recapitulates the formation of functional sperm-like cells in a dish. Our method fully complies with the gold standards recently proposed by a consensus panel of reproductive biologists, so we think that it holds tremendous promise for treating male infertility..."

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160225135207.htm