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April 11, 2022 09:21 pm

Rat Pups Born From Sperm Artificially Produced From Stem Cells

Rat sperm cells generated from stem cells in the lab have been used to produce fertile offspring for the first time. The approach could be adapted to rescue endangered rodents and may help to inform the artificial production of human sperm to treat infertility. From a report: Until now, cells that give rise to sperm and egg cells, called germ cells, have only been produced in the lab in mice. Toshihiro Kobayashi at the University of Tokyo and his colleagues have now shown that stem cells extracted from rat embryos can be grown in the lab to produce germ cells that form sperm when implanted into rat testes. The researchers then collected the sperm cells and injected them into egg cells, before implanting the fertilised embryos into female rats. These grew into healthy adult rats that were able to have offspring of their own. "Until recently, we didn't know enough about how rat germ cells develop in order to adapt the mouse procedure for rats. Now, we understand more about what proteins and growth factors are needed to generate the rat germ cells, so we could do this work," says Kobayashi. Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.abl4412.

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