Title:
Mechanism and Reconstitution In Vitro of Mammalian Germ Cell Development
Speaker:
Mitinori Saitou1,2,3
1 Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology, Kyoto University,
2 Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University,
3Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University.
Abstract:
The germ cell lineage ensures the creation of new individuals, perpetuating/diversifying the genetic and epigenetic information across the generations. We have been investigating the mechanism for germ cell development, and have shown that mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs)/induced pluripotent stem cells (miPSCs) are induced into primordial germ cell-like cells (mPGCLCs) with a robust capacity both for spermatogenesis and oogenesis and for contributing to offspring. These works have served as a basis for exploring the mechanism of key events during germ cell development such as epigenetic reprogramming and sex determination/meiotic entry. We have also shown that human iPSCs (hiPSCs) with a primed pluripotency robustly generates human PGCLCs (hPGCLCs) with a property of human early PGCs. Moreover, by investigating the development of cynomolgus monkeys, we have defined a developmental coordinate of the spectrum of pluripotency among mice, monkeys, and humans, and have identified the origin of the germ cell lineage in cynomolgus monkeys in the amnion. More recently, we have shown the hPGCLCs can be induced into oogonia/early oocytes with appropriate epigenetic reprogramming in xenogenetic reconstituted ovaries.
I would here like to discuss our latest findings regarding the mechanism of and reconstitution in vitro of germ cell development in mice, monkeys, and humans.
