August 4, 2022

expert reaction to study attempting to generate rat sperm cells inside sterile mice using a technique called blastocyst complementation

A study published in Stem Cell Reports looks at the generation of rat sperm cells inside sterile mice.

Prof David Whittingham, Emeritus Professor Experimental Embryology, St George’s, University of London, said:

“This would be a step towards a significant advance if further studies suggest the full potential can be realised – i.e. this would require the demonstration that the rat sperm can fertilise rat eggs and result in the production of live young, which has not happened in this study.  If that next step was to be possible then it could have significant consequences in wildlife conservation.  But at this stage the take-home message is that this current study offers a possibility for this purpose if results are reproducible by others.”

‘Exclusive generation of rat spermatozoa in sterile mice utilizing blastocyst complementation with pluripotent stem cells’ by Joel Zvick et al. was published in Stem Cell Reports at 16:00 UK time on Thursday 4 August 2022.

DOI: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2022.07.005

Declared interests

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