Transcriptome profiling reveals signaling conditions dictating human spermatogonia fate in vitro
Kun Tan, Hye-Won Song, Merlin Thompson, Sarah K. Munyoki, Meena Sukhwani, Tung‐Chin Hsieh, Kyle E. Orwig, Miles Wilkinson
Abstract
cells) revealed the full complement of genes that shift expression during this developmental transition, including genes encoding key components in the TGF-β, GDNF, AKT, and JAK-STAT signaling pathways. We examined the effect of manipulating these signaling pathways on cultured human SPG using both conventional approaches and single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis. This revealed that GDNF and BMP8B broadly support human SPG culture, while activin A selectively supports more advanced human SPG. One condition-AKT pathway inhibition-had the unique ability to selectively support the culture of primitive human uSPG. This raises the possibility that supplementation with an AKT inhibitor could be used to culture human SSCs in vitro for therapeutic applications.