Transplanted stem cells become eggs in sterile mice
Oocyte success raises hopes for infertility treatments
With an assist, an old mouse might be able to make new eggs.
Sterilized female mice produced healthy babies after receiving a transplant of egg-generating stem cells from another mouse, researchers report online May 18 in Molecular Therapy. If such a procedure worked in humans — still a distant prospect — it could help women with early menopause or chemotherapy-induced infertility to conceive.
These egg-generating cells are germline stem cells — precursors that become either eggs or sperm depending on whether they end up in ovaries or testes. While male germline stem cells differentiate (or become specialized) throughout a man’s life to produce a steady supply of new sperm, a woman’s are believed to differentiate into a stockpile of eggs during a relatively narrow time frame before she’s even born. Some recent studies have begun to question that conventional wisdom, though the idea that germline stem cells could still exist in women after birth is controversial (SN Online: 7/9/12).