In vitro modeling of human germ cell development using pluripotent stem cells

In this study, we developed a feeder-, serum-, and animal product-free culture condition, and successfully induced high percentage of SLCs from human PSCs. Genome-wide expression analyses demonstrated a significant upregulation of germ cell specific genes in SLCs derived from PSCs compared to in vivo isolated human CD90+ SSCs. And furthermore, under this optimized feeder-free condition SLCs have went through meiosis and formed putative round spermatids. Our data demonstrated a robust feeder-, serum- and xeno-free protocol to induce differentiation of PSCs to SLCs from which putative haploid spermatids may develop. Examination of genome-wide genes expression in PSCs, SLCs and putative haploid spermatids types.