Spermatogonial stem cells and their biological characteristics:current situation, advances and applications / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:Spermatogonial stem cel s with abilities of differentiation, self renewal and proliferation are a kind of adult stem cel s that can transfer genetic information into offspring, which have great application prospects in medicine, genetics and zoology. OBJECTIVE:To review the source, biological characteristics, and application of spermatogonial stem cel s as wel as self-renewal and molecular regulation underlining these differentiations. METHODS:PubMed and CNKI databases were searched by the first author using key words of“spermatogonial stem cel , biological characteristics, self-renewal, differentiation”in English and in Chinese, respectively, to retrieve relevant articles published from 1990 to 2015. Literatures addressing spermatogonial stem cel s were included, and 46 articles were chosen for further analysis eventual y. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Spermatogonial stem cel s can be cultured in vitro, cryopreserved, and genetical y modified as wel as used for al ogeneic or xenogeneic transplantation, al of which contribute to understanding the mechanisms of spermatogenesis, thereby providing new means for treatment of male sterile disease and genetic diseases and providing new hopes for chemotherapy-induced germ cel damage in young cancer patients. Microenvironment and Plzf, GDNF, SCF/c-Kit signaling pathways can play an important role in the regulation of spermatogonial stem cel self-renewal and differentiation. As a cel model, spermatogonial stem cel s become an important tool for the researches on spermatogenesis mechanism, regeneration of spermatogenesis in sterile individuals and reproduction of transgenic animals.