Testicles could provide 'ethical' stem cells

Testicles could provide 'ethical' stem cells
09 October 2008
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Men may wince at the thought, but biopsies from human testicles have yielded stem cells that can be turned into virtually any cell in the body.

The hope is that tissue created from stem cells derived from a patient's testicles would not be rejected when implanted elsewhere in the body. What's more, such cells would avoid the ethical concerns surrounding embryonic stem cells (ESCs), which have the same therapeutic potential.

A team led by Thomas Skutella at the University of Tübingen in Germany harvested spermatogonial cells, which normally mature into sperm, from men and used a series of chemicals to turn them into various cell types (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature07404). "We made them into skin, structures of the gut, cartilage, bone, muscle and neurons," says Skutella.

Taking cells from the testicles sounds painful, but Skutella says such biopsies are routine in men undergoing infertility treatment. "Skin biopsies might sound more acceptable, but it hurts just as much as from the testes," he says.

In 2006, it was shown that mouse spermatogonial cells are ESC-like. Skutella's corresponding feat in humans is "a home run" that "bypasses the ethical and immunological problems associated with ESCs", says Robert Lanza, a stem-cell specialist at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Other researchers caution that more work is needed, as Skutella's cells do not express all the molecular markers associated with ESCs. "They are not identical to embryonic stem cells," says Austin Smith of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research at the University of Cambridge.

Stem Cells - Learn more about the promise and the controversy in our cutting edge special report .

From issue 2677 of New Scientist magazine, 09 October 2008, page 4