Homing Efficiency and Proliferation Kinetics of Male Germ Line Stem Cells Following Transplantation in Mice
Open Access
- 1 August 2003
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Biology of Reproduction
- Vol. 69 (2), 701-707
- https://doi.org/10.1095/biolreprod.103.016352
Abstract
Stem cells in the male germ line (spermatogonial stem cells [SSCs]) are an important target for male fertility restoration and germ line gene modification. To establish a model system to study the biology and the applications of SSCs in mice, I used a sequential transplantation strategy to analyze the process by which SSCs colonize the stem cell niche after transplantation and to determine the efficiency of the process (homing efficiency). I further analyzed the proliferation kinetics of SSCs after colonization. The number of SSCs gradually decreased during the homing process, and only 12% of SSCs successfully colonized the niche on Day 7 after transplantation, but the number of SSCs increased by Day 14. Thus, homing efficiency of adult mouse SSCs is 12%. These results indicate that SSCs are rapidly lost upon transplantation and require ∼1 wk to settle into their niches before initiating expansion. Using this SSC homing efficiency, I calculated that ∼3000 SSCs exist in one normal adult testis, representing ∼0.01% of total testis cells. Between 7 days and 1 mo after transplantation, SSCs proliferated 7.5-fold. However, they did not significantly proliferate thereafter until 2 mo, and only 8 SSCs supported one colony of donor-derived spermatogenesis from 1 to 2 mo. These results suggest that self-renewal and differentiation of SSCs are strictly regulated in coordination with the progress of an entire unit of regenerating spermatogenesis.Keywords
This publication has 21 references indexed in Scilit:
- Germline Stem Cell Transplantation and TransgenesisScience, 2002
- Toward Regenerative MedicineImmunity, 2001
- Germ Cell Genotype Controls Cell Cycle during Spermatogenesis in the Rat1Biology of Reproduction, 1998
- Disruption of overlapping transcripts in the ROSA βgeo 26 gene trap strain leads to widespread expression of β-galactosidase in mouse embryos and hematopoietic cellsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 1997
- Regulatory Mechanisms in Stem Cell BiologyCell, 1997
- Biology of the haemopoietic stem cellPublished by Elsevier BV ,1997
- Germline transmission of donor haplotype following spermatogonial transplantation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 1994
- Spermatogenesis following male germ-cell transplantation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 1994
- The long-term repopulating subset of hematopoietic stem cells is deterministic and isolatable by phenotypeImmunity, 1994
- The distribution of colony‐forming cells among spleen coloniesJournal of Cellular and Comparative Physiology, 1963