A major breakthrough has been reported that can transform fertility treatment. Researchers from Weizmann Institute in Israel and University of Cambridge in the UK have developed primitive sperm and eggs from human skin cells.
Earlier, researchers have created the same from rodent cells. For the time first time, sperms and eggs have been developed from human stem cells.
Study’s author Dr. Naoko Irie at the Welcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute at Cambridge, was of the view that they have cultured human embryonic stem cells for five days under controlled conditions.
Study researchers are quite positive that cells could be developed as mature sperm and eggs with further research. In order to know how primitive cells develop, the researchers are planning to insert these cells into the ovaries of mouse.
While carrying out the study, study’s lead researcher Profession Azim Surani found a gene called SOX17 that is responsible for directing human stem cells to develop into primordial germ cells (PGCs). Now, the researchers have suggested that PGCs can be developed from adult skin cells.
PGCs take place in the growth of an embryo. These cells become ‘specified’ by the time embryonic stem cells start to differentiate into basic cells and they lead to sperm or egg cells.
The research will also help the scientists to know about human germline, infertility and cell tumors. Professor Surani said, “Germ cells are ‘immortal’ in the sense that they provide an enduring link between all generations, carrying genetic information from one generation to the next”.
Study’s co-author Jacob Hanna, a stem cell researcher at the Weizmann Institute, said that for past so many years, researchers have been trying to create human primordial germ cells in the petri dish. The latest study has been published in the journal Cell.