Derivation of male germ cell-like lineage from human fetal bone marrow stem cells

Abstract

Mesenchymal stem cells derived from bone marrow are a well characterized population of adult stem cells that can be maintained and propagated in culture for a long time with the capacity to form a variety of cell types. Reports have shown that murine and human embryonic stem cells can differentiate into primordial germ cells and then to early gametes. Evidence has indicated that some adult stem cells also have the potential to differentiate into germ cells. Currently, there are no reports on directed differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells into germ cells. This study investigated the ability of retinoic acid and testicular extracts to induce human bone marrow stem cells (hBMSC) to differentiate into male germ cells. It was found that a small population of hBMSC seem to transdifferentiate into male germ cell-like cells. These cells expressed early germ cell markers OCT4, STELLA, NANOG and VASA, and male germ-ceil-specific markers such as DAZL, TH2, c-kit, beta(1)-integrin, ACR, PRMl, FSHR, STRA8 and SCP3, as analysed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry. These results demonstrated that hBMSC may differentiate into male germ cells and the same could be used as a potential source of cells for reproductive toxicological studies.

Production of Somatic Chimera Chicks by Injection of Bone Marrow Cells into Recipient Blastoderms

“…Compared with our former results in mammals, the range of stem cell-specific marker-positive cells in BMCs was 11-50%, depending on the age and species of the individuals [10,27]. Previous studies have demonstrated that BMCs are capable of differentiating into various types of cells by RA in rodents and humans [10,11], along with a host of other functions, such as the regulation of development and the induction of differentiation into neural and cardiac cells [28]. However, the relevant mechanism and appropriate concentrations of RA for induction of differentiation remain to be clearly elucidated.…”

“…Recently, bone marrow (BM)-derived stem cells have been shown to transdifferentiate into multilineage cells, such as muscles of the mesoderm, the lung and liver of the endoderm and pigment cells of ectoderm origin, as well as germ cells [8][9][10][11]. Thus, the plasticity and self-renewal capacity of BMCs offer enormous potential for clinical tissue regeneration [12], and some clinical trials using MSCs in BMCs have yielded encouraging results, such as a possible cure for Parkinson's disease [13] and the regeneration of cartilage [14].…”

Preparation of infertile male rabbits by local electron beam irradiation for intratesticular transplantation of autologous bone marrow stem cells

“…Within two weeks, cultured BMSCs had proliferated to reach 80-90% confluence. Therefore, the shape of the proliferation curves obtained had an inverted "S" shape ( Figure 4), based on the slow proliferation that occurred 0-2 days after inoculation, followed by a period of exponential growth over days [8][9][10][11][12][13]. Consistent with the morphology of the 12 Gy-treated cells versus control cells, the rates of cell proliferation were also found to be similar for cells from group D versus group E (Figure 4).…”

Inductive Role of Sustentacular Cells (Sertoli Cells) Conditioned Medium on Bone Marrow Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells

“…Various studies have been done on derivation of male germ cells from stem cells. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMMSC) are a good source for derived germ cells but these derived cells do not have a potential of spontaneous differentiation (Nayernia et al, 2004;Hua et al, 2009). Therefore, inductive factors are necessary for the differentiation of these derived cells.…”