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Human amniotic epithelial cells maintain mouse spermatogonial stem cells in an undifferentiated state due to high leukemia inhibitor factor (LIF) expression

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Abstract

Spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs), like other stem cells, have unique properties: prolonged proliferation, self-renewal, generation of differentiated progeny, and maintenance of developmental potential. Long-term cultivation of normal SSCs into stable cell lines, and maintaining SSCs in an undifferentiated state capable of self-renewal, is a major challenge. Here, we compare the effect of leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) expression on mouse SSCs isolated from testicular tissue cultured under different conditions. We found that human amniotic epithelial cells (hAECs) with high LIF expression (LIFhigh) feeder cells allowed mouse SSCs to maintain a high level of AP activity when cultured long term. Expression of some important stem cell markers was higher in mouse SSCs cultured on hAECs (LIFhigh) compared to those cultured on hAECs (LIFlow). Taken together, these results suggest that LIF expression could be a crucial component for feeder cells to maintain mouse SSCs in an undifferentiated, proliferative state capable of self-renewal.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the Shanghai Municipal Health Bureau Fund for Young Scholars (no. 2008Y002) and Medicine-Engineering Unite Fund for Shanghai Jiaotong University (no. YG2009MS47), Shanghai Committee Medical Science Foundation of China (no.10411967100), and Natural Science Foundation of School of Medicine of Shanghai Jiaotong University (no. YZ1046) to Te Liu. And this work was supported by grants from the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program) (no. 2008AA101001) and Science and Technology Department of Shanghai Research Fund (no. 07DZ19063-2) to Zhixue Liu.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, China

    Te Liu

  2. School of Life Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Zhixue Liu

  3. Center Laboratory, International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, 200030, China

    Te Liu & Weiwei Cheng

  4. Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China

    Lihe Guo

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  1. Te Liu
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  2. Lihe Guo
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  3. Zhixue Liu
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  4. Weiwei Cheng
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Correspondence to Zhixue Liu or Weiwei Cheng.

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Editor: T. Okamoto

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Liu, T., Guo, L., Liu, Z. et al. Human amniotic epithelial cells maintain mouse spermatogonial stem cells in an undifferentiated state due to high leukemia inhibitor factor (LIF) expression. In Vitro Cell.Dev.Biol.-Animal 47, 318–326 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11626-011-9396-5

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