Sertoli cells are the unique source of stem cell factor for spermatogenesis

To systematically investigate the expression patterns of all potential niche factors in testis, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) of all testicular somatic cell types. To enrich somatic cells, we depleted Tomato+ cells from the testes of 2-month-old Ddx4-creER; R26tdTomato mice at 4 weeks after tamoxifen treatment. Then the cells were further captured with 10x Genomics platform. After analysis of the integrated data, we mapped the expression patterns of all known niche factors in testicular somatic cells. We also performed scRNA-seq of testicular cells from 6-week-old control and Amh-cre;Scf fl/fl mice to study the effect of Scf conditional knockout from Sertoli cells on spermatogenesis. By scRNA-seq data analysis, we found that conditional knockout of Scf from Sertoli cells blocks spermatogenesis by depleting differentiating spermatogonia Overall design: We analyzed single cell transcriptome profile of testicular cells from 8-week-old DDX4-creER;R26tdTomato mice and 6-week-old control and Amh-cre;Scf fl/fl mice