title: Transplanted germ cells persist long-term in irradiated ram testes.
abstract: Testicular germ cell transplantation provides a tool to study transgenesis, spermatogenesis and to increase production efficiency in livestock industries. Isolated testicular germ cells can be transplanted into testes of livestock breeds to generate sperm of donor origin. In sheep, methods have been developed previously to isolate cell populations from ram testes and transplant these into irradiated testes of recipient rams. This has resulted in rams producing sperm derived from the donor cells and a number of the recipient animals have produced donor-derived offspring from the introduced spermatogonial cells. Microsatellite genotyping data presented here demonstrates that these rams continue to produce sperm of donor origin for at least 5 years post-transplantation. This research provides new evidence of the stability of transplanted germ cells in a commercially important species, and with further refinements to cell isolation, transplantation and recipient preparation, this technology should find use in breeding systems to increase livestock production efficiency.
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Food Futures National Research Flagship, Australia; CSIRO Animal, Food and Health Sciences, 306 Carmody Road, St. Lucia, QLD 4067, Australia. Electronic address: sally.stockwell@csiro.au.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stockwell
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Davey
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Herrid
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Lehnert
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001947:Breeding / Q000379:methods; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000528:radiation effects; D006085:Graft Survival / Q000528:radiation effects*; D008297:Male; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D012756:Sheep / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000502:physiology* / Q000637:transplantation*; D013737:Testis / Q000166:cytology / Q000528:radiation effects*; D013997:Time Factors; D014019:Tissue Donors; D014183:Transplantation, Heterologous
keywords: Breeding technologies; Sheep; Spermatogonia; Stem cells; Testis