Stem Cells Coaxed to Make Precursors to Egg, Sperm
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 28 (HealthDay News) -- In a step that might someday aid infertile couples, scientists have nudged stem cells to become human germ cells -- precursors to egg and sperm.
"For the first time we have a human genome-based system for how to make a germ cell or not," said lead researcher Renee Reijo Pera, director of the Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education at Stanford University School of Medicine. "I think it will play out to people's benefit because 10 to 15 percent of couples cannot have children."
The study, published online Oct. 28 in the journal Nature, provides both an experimental system for germ cell development as well as a method for coaxing germ cell production from embryonic stem cells (ESCs). It also identifies three molecules called RNA-binding proteins that are critical to the process, members of the so-called DAZ gene family.
Researchers can exploit the resulting system to study germ cell formation -- and in particular, ways it can go awry -- and to develop drugs that can manipulate the process, explained Reijo Pera.
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