Testicular testicles could solve the mystery of male infertility

The testes are responsible for sperm production and testosterone synthesis. Abnormalities in testicular development and function lead to disorders of sexual differentiation (DSD) and male infertility.Currently, no in vitro Systems exist for modeling testes.

Dr. Nizan Gonen, a researcher specializing in the process of fetal sex determination, along with research students Avija Stopel, Cherie Lev, and Stav Dahari, have discovered a new technology that has the potential to significantly advance our understanding of sex determination and the mechanisms involved. Successfully created an “ testicle.'' We provide a solution to male infertility, a problem faced by 12 men around the world and one of their girlfriends.

Manufactured in Dr. Gonen's lab at the Goodman School of Life Sciences and the Institute for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials at Bar-Ilan University, the artificial testicles are testicular organoids, small prosthetic devices made from real mouse testes. Organoid development has advanced significantly over the past decade with the realization that two-dimensional cell samples are available. in vitro It is not possible to imitate the behavior of an entire organ. Organoids of organs such as the brain, kidneys, and intestines have now been created. The testicular organoids created by Gonen's group closely simulate natural testes.

Artificial testes were cultured from immature testicular cells taken from newborn mice. The research team knew the procedure was successful when they saw that the tubule-like structures and cell organization closely resembled those in humans. alive Testicles. These tubular structures parallel the multiple seminiferous tubules present in the natural testes, where sperm are produced.

Successful cultivation of organoids in vitro 9 weeks. This is considered to be a long period of time and could theoretically be enough time to complete the process of sperm production and hormone secretion. In mice, this takes 34 days, so these processes can occur due to the relatively long lifespan of organoids. In vitro. Dr. Gonen doesn't yet know whether existing models actually produce sperm cells, but the research team has already noticed signs of the beginning of meiosis, the process by which gametes are produced. A gamete is a reproductive cell, in this case a sperm cell that has half the number of chromosomes as a normal cell, and “wait” for the other half to be completed by another gamete, in this case an egg, at the time of fertilization.

Organoids typically resemble fetal organs. In this case, the researchers created conditions in the lab that allowed the organoids to mature and showed that testes grown from embryonic cells can also develop and grow transparent sperm ducts. The research team failed in their attempts to grow organoids from the testes of adult mice.

Artificial testes are a promising model for basic research on testicular development and function, and may have therapeutic applications for disorders of sexual development and infertility. ”

Dr.Nitzan Gonen, researcher

In the future, they plan to use human samples to create organoids. For example, testes made from human cells could help children undergoing treatment for cancer, which can impair their ability to produce functional sperm. Since children are too young to produce their own sperm, these samples can be frozen and used to produce children in the future.Gonen's vision is to grow testicular organoids from biopsies of children with cancer, and hopefully sperm that can be fertilized. In vitro.

The results of this study were recently International Journal of Biological Sciences.