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SCIENCESaturday 27 February 2016

Mouse sperm made in lab; technique may help with infertility

MALCOLM RITTER This photo provided by Xiao-Yang Zhao of the Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016, shows
AP Science Writer one of the offspring produced with rudimentary mouse sperm derived from stem cells.
NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists
have produced rudimen- Associated Press
tary mouse sperm from
stem cells in the laboratory, advance, experts said, They were injected into 379 But he and another ex- converted into stem cells
a step that may lead to a because it eliminates the eggs; nine baby mice re- pert, Renee Reijo Pera of bearing the patient’s DNA.
treatment for infertile men. need for transplants. In- sulted. Montana State University, These stem cells would then
If the technique pans out stead, the researchers put The results are convinc- said they thought the tech- be put through the process.
in people, doctors might the sperm precursors in a ing, said John Schimenti of nique might someday be But there would be chal-
someday be able to turn lab dish containing testicle Cornell University in Ithaca, adapted to more directly lenges in applying the
skin cells from a man into cells. New York, who didn’t par- help some infertile men. mouse technique to peo-
sperm that can pass along Although the precursors ticipate in the work. He said In that case, the process ple, such as finding an al-
his DNA to his offspring. never became fully mature he thinks the major payoff would begin with skin cells ternative to using testicle
But experts warned that sperm, they developed far will come in basic research or other cells from the cells from newborns, Reijo
the technology would enough to fertilize eggs. into sperm development. patient, which could be Pera said.q
have to overcome some
hurdles first.
The mouse work is reported
by Chinese scientists in an
article released Thursday
by the journal Cell Stem
Cell. The technique is now
being tested in monkeys, a
senior author said.
Qi Zhou of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences in
Beijing added in an email
that the research has “a
long way to go” before it
could be used for infertile
men.
The scientists began with
mouse embryonic stem
cells, which are found in
embryos and can devel-
op into any kind of cell in
the body. In the lab these
cells were exposed to
chemicals to nudge them
toward becoming sperm.
While previous research
has also generated sperm
precursors in this way,
these precursors then had
to be transplanted into the
testicles of mice to devel-
op further.
The new technique is an