Abstract
Whether the adult mammalian ovary contains oogonial stem cells (OSCs) is controversial. They have been isolated by a live-cell sorting method using the germ cell marker DDX4, which has previously been assumed to be cytoplasmic, not surface-bound. Furthermore their stem cell and germ cell characteristics remain disputed. Here we show that although OSC-like cells can be isolated from the ovary using an antibody to DDX4, there is no good in silico modelling to support the existence of a surface-bound DDX4. Furthermore these cells when isolated were not expressing DDX4, and did not initially possess germline identity. Despite these unremarkable beginnings, they acquired some pre-meiotic markers in culture, including DDX4, but critically never expressed oocyte-specific markers, and furthermore were not immortal but died after a few months. Our results suggest that freshly isolated OSCs are not germ stem cells, and are not being isolated by their DDX4 expression. However it may be that culture induces some pre-meiotic markers. In summary the present study offers weight to the dogma that the adult ovary is populated by a fixed number of oocytes and that adult de novo production is a rare or insignificant event.
Highlights
Whether the adult mammalian ovary contains oogonial stem cells (OSCs) is controversial
The prevailing dogma in the field of reproductive biology for over 60 years has been that the adult mammalian ovary lacks germ stem cells[1]
We find that it can be used to sort a small population of ovarian cells which appear to take on some characteristics of Oogonial Stem Cells (OSCs) following culture
Summary
Whether the adult mammalian ovary contains oogonial stem cells (OSCs) is controversial They have been isolated by a live-cell sorting method using the germ cell marker DDX4, which has previously been assumed to be cytoplasmic, not surface-bound. We show that OSC-like cells can be isolated from the ovary using an antibody to DDX4, there is no good in silico modelling to support the existence of a surface-bound DDX4 These cells when isolated were not expressing DDX4, and did not initially possess germline identity. The prevailing dogma in the field of reproductive biology for over 60 years has been that the adult mammalian ovary lacks germ stem cells[1] This has been used to explain why women undergo the menopause, and suffer from premature ovarian failure if the primordial follicle pool is depleted by chemotherapy[2,3]. These characteristics are found either not to be germ-cell-specific or are initially absent from www.nature.com/scientificreports/
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