Abstract
Spermatogenesis is a complex, well-organized process including proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, and morphogenesis through which differentiating daughter cells of spermatogonial stem cells develop into mature sperm (1,2). In men, this process requires approx 64 d, 52 d in the rat, and 35 d in the mouse. This process in mammals occurs in a highly coordinated fashion within the seminiferous epithelium inside the seminiferous tubule. Spermatogenesis can be divided into three phases.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Barratt, C. L. R. (1995) Spermatogenesis, in Gametes—The Spermatozoon (Grudzinskas, I. G. and Yovich, I. L., eds.), Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 250–267.
Sharpe, R. M. (1993) Regulation of spermatogenesis, in The Physiology of Reproduction (Knobil, E. and Neill, J. D., eds.), Raven, New York, pp. 1363–1434.
Hecht, N. B. (1998) Molecular mechanisms of male germ cell differentiation. BioEssays 20, 555–561.
Skinner, M. K. (1991) Cell-cell interaction in the testis. Endocrin. Rev. 12, 45–77.
Syed, V. and Hecht, N. B. (1997) Up-regulation and down-regulation of gene expressed in coculture of rat Sertoli cells and germ cells. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 47, 380–389.
Jegon, B. (1993) The Sertoli-germ cell communication network in mammals. Int. Rev. Cytol. 147, 25–96.
Nayernia, K., von Meringe, M. H. P., Kraszucka, K., et al. (1999) A novel testicular haploid expressed gene (THEG) involved in mouse spermatid-Sertoli cell interaction. Biol Reprod. 60, 1488–1495.
Enders, G. C. (1993) Sertoli-Sertoli and Sertoli-germ cell communications, in The Sertoli Cell (Russell, L. D. and Griswold, M. D., eds.), Cache River Press, Clearwater, FL, pp. 447–460.
Sha, I., Zhon, Z., Li, I., et al. (2002) Identification of testis development and spermatogenesis-related genes in human and mouse testes using cDNA arrays. Mol. Hum. Reprod. 8, 511–517.
Kramer, I. A., McCarrey, I. M., Djakiew, D., et al. (1998) The selective potentiation of chromation domains. Development 125, 4749–4755.
Nayernia, K., Adham, I., Kremling, H., et al. (1996) Stage and developmental specific gene expression during mammalian spermatogenesis. Int. J. Dev. Biol. 40, 379–383.
Wang, D. J., McCarrey, I. R., Yang, F., et al. (2001) An abundance of X-linked genes expressed in spermatogonia. Nature Genet. 27, 422–426.
Fujii, T., Tamura, K., Masai, K., et al. (2002) Use of stepwise subtraction to comprehensively isolate mouse genes whose transcription is up-regulated during spermiogenesis. EMBO Rep. 3, 367–372.
Fuller, M. T. (1998) Genetic control of cell proliferation and differentiation in Drosophila spermatogenesis. Semin. Cell Dev. Biol. 9, 433–444.
Escalier, D. (2001) Impact of genetic engineering on the understanding of spermatogenesis. Hum. Reprod. Update 7, 191–210.
Sassone-Corsi, P. (2002) Unique chromatin remodeling and transcriptional regulation inspermatogenesis. Science 296, 2176–2178.
Schäfer, M., Nayernia, K., Engel, W., et al. (1995) Translational control in spermatogenesis. Dev. Biol. 172, 344–352.
Venables, I. P. and Eperou, I. C. (1999) The roles of RNA-binding proteins in spermatogenesis and male infertility. Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 9, 346–354.
Rassoulzadegan, M., Paqauis-Flucklinger, W., Bertino, B., et al. (1993) Transmeiotic differentiation of male germ cells in culture. Cell 75, 997–1006.
Miura, C., Miura, T., Yamashita, M., et al. (1996) Hormonal induction of all stages of spermatogenesis in germ-somatic cell coculture from immature Japanese eel testis. Dev. Growth Differ. 38, 257–262.
Abe, S. I. (1987) Differentiation of spermatogeneic cells from vertebrates in vitro. Int. Rev. Cytol. 109, 159–209.
Sakai, N. (2002) Transmeiotic differentiation of zebrafish germ cells into functional sperm in culture. Development 29, 3359–3365.
Hanahan, D. (1989) Transgenic mice as probes into complex systems. Science 246, 1265–1275.
Hofmann, M. C., Hess, R. A., Goldberg, E., et al. (1994) Immortalized germ cells undergo meiosis in vitro. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91, 5533–5537.
Feng, L. X., Chen, Y., Dettin, L., et al. (2002) Generation and in vitro differentiation of a spermatogonial cell line. Science 297, 392–395.
Tascou, S., Nayernia, K., Samani, A., et al. (2000) Immortalization of murine male germ cells at a discrete stage of differentiation by a novel directed promoterbased strategy. Biol. Reprod. 63, 1555–1561.
Van Pelt, A. M. M., Roepers-Gajadien, H. L., Gademan, I. S., et al. (2002) Establishment of cell lines with rat spermatogonial stem cell characteristics. Endocrinology 143, 1845–1850.
Schuermann, M. (1990) An expression vector system for stable expression of oncogenes. Nucleic Acids Res. 18, 4945–4946.
Robinson, M. O., McCarrey, I. R., and Simon, M. I. (1989) Transcriptional regulatory regions of testis-specific PGK2 defined in transgenic mice. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 86, 8437–8441.
Bellve, A. R., Cavicchia, J. C., Millete, C. F., et al. (1977) Spermatogenic cells of the prepuberal mouse. Isolation and morphological characterization. J. Cell Biol. 74, 68–85.
McCarrey, J. R. (1998) Spermatogenesis as a model system for developmental analysis of regulatory mechanisms associated with tissue-specific gene expression. Semin. Cell Dev. Biol. 9, 459–466.
Nayernia, K., Nieter, S., Kremling, H., et al. (1994) Functional and molecular characterization of the transcriptional regulatory region of the proacrosin gene. J. Biol. Chem. 269, 32,181–32,186.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Nayernia, K., Engel, W. (2004). Molecular and Cellular Approaches for Establishment of an In Vitro Spermatogenesis System. In: Schatten, H. (eds) Germ Cell Protocols. Methods in Molecular Biology™, vol 253. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-744-0:121
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-744-0:121
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-1-58829-121-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-59259-744-4
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols