Scientists from the University of Cambridge in Britain created artificial sperm and eggs at the initial stage of their development from ordinary human skin cells. This is a real achievement that can revolutionize knowledge about the problem of infertility.
Researchers have previously managed to create sex cells from animal stem cells. But experts from Cambridge went further. In laboratory conditions, they turned human skin cells into embryos of sperm and eggs.
But the problem is that you cannot go further - the law prohibits complex experiments on humans.
Therefore, now scientists want to grow sex cells from skin cells of mice: "In the next step, researchers will have to inject cells into the ovaries or testes of mice to see if they will develop completely in animal organisms," reports InoPressa. With this procedure, you can grow full-fledged sex cells, and then use them for fertilization.
The authors hope to use this example to study how sperm and eggs are formed and mature. It may be possible to find out what is the difference between cell development in healthy and infertile people. The group's scientific article was published in the journal Cell.
“Researchers at Cambridge created germ cells early in development by growing human embryonic stem cells under carefully controlled conditions for a week. Following this success, they demonstrated that the same procedure could be used to transform adult skin tissue into precursors for sperm and eggs. This opens up the prospect of creating germ cells corresponding to the genes of patients,”reports The Guardian.
It is noteworthy that not only sperm cells, but also eggs can be created from male cells. Only ova can be made from female cells due to the lack of a Y chromosome.
