Int. J. Dev. Biol. 45: S161 - S162 (2001)

Vol 45, Issue S1

Immortalization of type A spermatogonia using the SV40 large T antigen

Published: 1 June 2001

P Vecino, JA Uranga, A Alonso, J Arechaga

Univ Basque Country, Sch Med & Odontol, Dept Cell Biol & Histol, Leioa, Spain; German Canc Res Ctr, Heidelberg, Germany

Abstract

The study of the in vitro behaviour and experimental manipulation of spermatogonia. is limited due to the absence of an effective protocol for long culture of germ stem cells (Nagano et al., 1998). Some years ago, Hofmann et al. (1992) described the possibility of inducing immortalization of germ cells by transfection of the SV40 large T antigen. Nevertheless, these authors only produced continuous type B spermatogonia. cell lines and other somatic cells of the testis. In this communication we describe a modification of their method that can be used to generate continuous cell lines of the most undifferentiated germ cells of the testis, that is type A spermatogonia.

Keywords

Cells, transplantation, culture