Frozen Testes Tissue in Mice Nonetheless Viable After Two A long time

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WEDNESDAY, Might 11, 2022 (HealthDay Information)

In a discovering that provides hope to childhood cancer survivors who could need to have kids after they beat their illness, analysis in rodents reveals that testicular tissue frozen for greater than 20 years can nonetheless produce viable sperm.

Nevertheless, the tissue is much less fertile than samples frozen for just a few months.

Childhood cancer survival charges have elevated considerably in current a long time, however a critical facet impact of remedies equivalent to chemotherapy and radiation is decreased fertility later in life.

For boys, a possible methodology of preserving fertility can be to reap, freeze and later re-implant testicular tissue, which comprises stem cells that produce sperm (SSCs).

Earlier analysis has proven that this strategy can restore fertility in macaque monkeys, at the least after short-term freezing of testicular tissue.

On this new examine, researchers assessed how long-term freezing impacts these stem cells. They thawed rat stem cells that had been frozen of their laboratory for greater than 23 years, and implanted them in specifically bred mice that lack an immune response that will reject the international tissue.

The workforce in contrast the flexibility of the long-frozen stem cells to supply viable sperm with stem cells frozen for a number of months and freshly harvested stem cells. All the SSCs got here from a single rat colony maintained over a number of a long time.

The long-frozen stem cells colonized the mouse testicles and produced the entire essential cell sorts wanted to create sperm, however not in addition to the short-frozen or recent stem cells, in line with the examine

The findings are printed Might 10 within the journal PLOS Biology.

The long-frozen stem cells had comparable gene expression adjustments because the short-frozen and recent stem cells, however made fewer elongating spermatids, which go on to kind swimming sperm, the researchers defined.

“Our examine confirmed that rat spermatogonial stem cells will be efficiently frozen for over 20 years, transplanted into an infertile recipient animal and regenerate the flexibility to supply sperm, albeit at a decreased price,” mentioned examine writer Eoin Whelan, from the College of Pennsylvania’s Faculty of Veterinary Drugs.

“This might present a technique to get well the lack of fertility in pre-pubertal boys handled for cancer,” Whelan mentioned in a journal information launch.

It is famous that analysis from animal research doesn’t all the time produce the identical leads to people.

Extra data

For extra about preserving fertility in childhood cancer sufferers, see the American Cancer Society.

SOURCE: PLOS Biology, information launch, Might 10, 2022

By Robert Preidt HealthDay Reporter