Can Stem Cells Become Sperm Cells?

July 9, 2009 — -- The face of infertility -- in literature, in the media, in advocacy groups -- is so predominantly female that many often forget about the other part of the equation. But more than a third of infertility cases, which affect 7.3 million people in the United States, can be attributed to the male partner, according to a 2002 National Survey of Family Growth from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Now, new research may provide a glimmer of hope that infertile men may one day be able to contribute to the gene pool.

"We have a system which enables us for the first time to produce human sperm from stem cells," said Dr. Karim Nayernia, a professor of stem cell biology at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom and the lead researcher on this study, published July 8 in the journal Stem Cells and Development.

Skeptics are unconvinced that the researchers have gone as far as creating viable sperm -- sperm that could someday stand in for a male. But the researchers note that the study's data is too premature to consider writing men out of the reproductive picture.

In fact, Nayernia said the study may lead to treatments that could keep men squarely in the picture, even when they have problems with fertility.

"Studying sperm maturation is not accessible in vivo [in a body]. You cannot follow the system," Nayernia said. "Now we have a system to monitor the stages of male infertility."

Nayernia and his team developed XY (male) stem cells into haploid gametes -- sex cells with half the normal number of chromosomes. These new cells were able to grow into mature sperm, called In Vitro Derived sperm (IVD sperm).

Nayernia attempted to create sperm cells using XX (female) stem cells, but their development arrested, showing that the genes on the Y chromosome are necessary for sperm maturation.

The researchers had used this technique to produce viable sperm that were used to create offspring in mice and are currently developing a new system in which the stem cells are derived from human skin instead of an embryo.