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10 September 2014 Improved Serum- and Feeder-Free Culture of Mouse Germline Stem Cells
Mito Kanatsu-Shinohara, Narumi Ogonuki, Shogo Matoba, Hiroko Morimoto, Atsuo Ogura, Takashi Shinohara
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Abstract

Spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) undergo self-renewal division, which can be recapitulated in vitro. Attempts to establish serum-free culture conditions for SSCs have met with limited success. Although we previously reported that SSCs can be cultured without serum on laminin-coated plates, the growth rate and SSC concentration were relatively low, which made it inefficient for culturing large numbers of SSCs. In this study, we report on a novel culture medium that showed improved SSC maintenance. We used Iscove modified Dulbecco medium, supplemented with lipid mixture, fetuin, and knockout serum replacement. In the presence of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), SSCs cultured on laminin-coated plates could proliferate for more than 5 mo and maintained normal karyotype and androgenetic DNA methylation patterns in imprinted genes. Germ cell transplantation showed that SSCs in the serum-free medium proliferated more actively than those in the serum-supplemented medium and that the frequency of SSCs was comparable between the two culture media. Cultured cells underwent germline transmission. Development of a new serum- and feeder-free culture method for SSCs will facilitate studies into the effects of microenvironments on self-renewal and will stimulate further improvements to derive SSC cultures from different animal species.

Mito Kanatsu-Shinohara, Narumi Ogonuki, Shogo Matoba, Hiroko Morimoto, Atsuo Ogura, and Takashi Shinohara "Improved Serum- and Feeder-Free Culture of Mouse Germline Stem Cells," Biology of Reproduction 91(4), (10 September 2014). https://doi.org/10.1095/biolreprod.114.122317
Received: 21 June 2014; Accepted: 1 August 2014; Published: 10 September 2014
KEYWORDS
spermatogenesis
spermatogonia
spermatogonial stem cells
stem cells
testis
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