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1 May 2004 Accelerated Maturation of Primate Testis by Xenografting into Mice
Ali Honaramooz, Ming-Wen Li, M. Cecilia T. Penedo, Stuart Meyers, Ina Dobrinski
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Abstract

Testicular maturation and sperm production throughout the life of the male form the basis of male fertility. It is difficult to elucidate the intricate processes controlling testicular maturation and spermatogenesis in primates in vivo due to the long time span required for sexual maturation and also to the lack of accessible in vitro or in vivo models of primate spermatogenesis. Ectopic xenografting of neonatal testis tissue into mice provides an accessible model to study and manipulate the propagation and differentiation of male germ cells from immature donor animals. However, it was not clear whether this approach would be applicable to slowly maturing primates. Here we report that grafting of testis tissue from immature rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) into host mice resulted in the acceleration of testicular maturation and production of fertilization-competent sperm in testis xenografts. The system reported here provides a powerful, practical approach to study timing and control of testicular maturation and regulation of primate spermatogenesis without the necessity for experimentation in primates. This approach could potentially be applied to produce fertile sperm from sexually immature individuals of rare or valuable primate species or from prepubertal boys undergoing sterilizing therapy for cancer.

Ali Honaramooz, Ming-Wen Li, M. Cecilia T. Penedo, Stuart Meyers, and Ina Dobrinski "Accelerated Maturation of Primate Testis by Xenografting into Mice," Biology of Reproduction 70(5), 1500-1503, (1 May 2004). https://doi.org/10.1095/biolreprod.103.025536
Received: 14 November 2003; Accepted: 1 December 2003; Published: 1 May 2004
KEYWORDS
assisted reproductive technology
gametogenesis
pituitary hormones
testis
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