germ cells are not required to establish the female pathway in mouse fetal gonads女性生殖细胞不需要建立途径在小鼠胎儿性腺.pdfVIP

Germ Cells Are Not Required to Establish the Female Pathway in Mouse Fetal Gonads 1 1¤a 1,2 3¤b 3 Danielle M. Maatouk , Lindsey Mork , Ashley Hinson , Akio Kobayashi , Andrew P. McMahon , Blanche Capel1* 1 Department of Cell Biology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America, 2 Department of Pediatrics, Division of Hematology- Oncology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America, 3 Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America Abstract The fetal gonad is composed of a mixture of somatic cell lineages and germ cells. The fate of the gonad, male or female, is determined by a population of somatic cells that differentiate into Sertoli or granulosa cells and direct testis or ovary development. It is well established that germ cells are not required for the establishment or maintenance of Sertoli cells or testis cords in the male gonad. However, in the agametic ovary, follicles do not form suggesting that germ cells may influence granulosa cell development. Prior investigations of ovaries in which pre-meiotic germ cells were ablated during fetal life reported no histological changes during stages prior to birth. However, whether granulosa cells underwent normal molecular differentiation was not investigated. In cases where germ cell loss occurred secondary to other mutations, transdifferentiation of granulosa cells towards a Sertoli cell fate was observed, raising questions about whether germ cells play an active role in estab