Title:
In vitro induction of human germ cell fate from induced pluripotent stem cells
Speaker:
Shihori Yokobayashi, PhD
Center for iPS Cell Research and Application
Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University
Summary:
Mammalian germ cell development begins with the specification of primordial germ cells (PGCs). In humans, the specification of PGCs takes place at around embryonic week 2, very early phase of pregnancy. Due to the difficulty in their accessibility, it remains to be understood how human PGC fate is determined. To reconstitute human germ cell development in vitro is a key approach to understand molecular details involved in the process.
We have established an in vitro system, in which human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are firstly induced into incipient mesoderm-like cells (iMeLCs), which are in turn induced into human PGC-like cells (hPGCLCs). By utilizing this system, we have uncovered molecular pathways that are involved in the specification of human germ cell fate. Furthermore, we addressed the robustness of our system by using various hiPSC lines, and have observed clonal variations in the efficiency to be induced into hPGCLCs, as a consequence of clonal differences in gene expression responses to cytokine signaling. I would like to discuss our recent research for understanding clone properties of hiPSCs and developing a better strategy for inducing germ cell fate in vitro.
References:
Sasaki, Yokobayashi et al., Cell Stem Cell, 17(2):178-94. (2015)
Yokobayashi et al., Biol Repod., 96(6):1154-1166. (2017)
Kojima et al., Cell Stem Cell, 21(4):517-532. (2017)
Yokobayashi and Saitou., Cell Biology of the Ovary., Springer, Singapore. (2018)