Patent Application: US-24559608-A

Abstract:
the present invention relates to a method for generating pluripotent stem cells and to pluripotent stem cells generated from human testis .

Description:
the experiments with human material were approved by the local ethics council ( university clinic tübingen ). informed consent was obtained from all the human subjects . the obtained human testis tissues were mechanically disrupted and enzymatically dissociated with 0 . 5 g ml − 1 collagenase type vi ( sigma ) and 0 . 25 g ml − 1 dispase ii ( roche ) in hbss buffer with ca 2 + and mg 2 + ( paa ) for 30 min at 37 ° c . then the digest was pelleted at 1 , 000 r . p . m ., washed twice with knockout culture medium ( gibco ) with 20 % es cell qualified fbs and 1 % l - glutamine and filtered through a 40 μm mesh to obtain a single cell suspension . cells were plated into 10 cm 2 culture dishes at 2 × 10 6 cells per cm 2 containing medium with 4 ng ml − 1 gdnf ( sigma ) and incubated at 32 . 5 ° c ., 5 % co 2 for 96 h . medium was removed after 96h and testis cell cultures were gently washed with 4 ml of dmem high glucose ( paa ) and once with 4 ml of pbs . bound germ cells were harvested from monolayers of adherent somatic cells by repeated pipetting with 4 ml of dmem . the pooled suspension was pelleted at 1 , 000 r . p . m ., suspended in 10 ml dmem and filtered through a 40 - mm mesh . for further purification macs separation ( miltenyi ) with biotinylated cd49f ( α 6 integrin ; biolegend ) and anti - biotin beads was applied 5 , 15 , 16 . after macs separation , cells from five 10 - cm dishes were transferred to a 10 - cm plastic dish coated with collagen 1 ( 5 μg cm − 2 , becton dickinson ) and incubated at 32 . 5 ° c . for 4 h in basic medium ( dmem high glucose , 15 % fcs ( biochrom ), 1 % non - essential amino acids ( neaa ), 1 % l - glutamine and 0 . 05 mm β - mercaptoethanol ( gibco ) with 10 3 units ml &# 39 ; 1 leukaemia inhibitory factor ( lif , human , chemicon )) 5 . cells that did not bind to collagen i dishes ( col nb cells ) were harvested and pelleted at 1 , 000 r . p . m . the col nb cells were suspended in basic medium and plated at 0 . 5 − 1 × 10 6 cells per ml per well in 12 - well plates pre - coated with laminin ( 4 . 4 μg cm − 2 , sigma ). the plated col nb cells were incubated for 45 min at 32 . 5 ° c . and unbound cells ( col nb / lam nb cells ) were removed from bound cells ( lam b cells ) by pipetting and discarded . the lam b cells were rinsed twice with 1 ml dmem . the lam b cells then were harvested by gentle pipetting and cultured in basic medium on 0 . 1 % gelatine - coated 48 - well plates . under these conditions the spermatogonial cells proliferated first and aggregated , and then human adult gsc clusters were formed . we only used a few ( 500 ) purely isolated spermatogonial cells to generate human adult gsc cultures from the patients in 48 - well plates . generally the cells were passaged mechanically every 14 days . clusters were manually isolated and cut into pieces and plated on gelatine - coated dishes . only cell cultures with a normal karyotype ( 46 , xy in all of the examined metaphase spreads ) in low ( p3 ) and high ( p36 ) passages were used . for purposes of comparison all the experiments were also performed in parallel with the human es cell line h1 in the laboratory of j . hescheler ( cologne , germany ). the h1 cells were cultured in knockout dmem ( invitrogen ), 20 % knockout serum replacer ( invitrogen ), 1 mm l - glutamine ( invitrogen ), 1 % neaa ( invitrogen ), 0 . 1 mm β - mercaptoethanol ( gibco ), 1 % penicillin / streptomycin ( gibco ) and 4 ng ml − 1 fgf2 ( peprotech ) on cf1 - inactivated feeders on 0 . 1 % gelatine - coated dishes and passaged mechanically every 6 - 7 days . colonies were cut manually into pieces , counted and distributed on new feeder - coated dishes (˜ 1 . 34 × 10 4 cells cm - 2 ) 26 . different medium combinations were tested with spermatogonial cells cultured on 0 . 1 % gelatine - coated dishes or on different coatings . to this end spermatogonial cells were plated for 14 days and the formed clusters observed for another 42 days under 8 different conditions . ( 1 ) basic medium directly from the beginning of culture with lif ( 10 3 units ml − 1 ); ( 2 ) condition 1 but with fgf2 ( 4 ng ml − 1 ); ( 3 ) knockout medium with gdnf ( 4 ng ml − 1 ) for the first 4 days followed by basic medium with lif ; ( 4 ) knockout medium with gdnf ; ( 5 ) condition 4 but with fgf2 ( 4 ng ml − 1 ); ( 6 ) knockout medium or basic medium without gdnf , fgf2 or lif ; ( 7 ) condition 1 or 3 on a combination of laminin , fibronectin and poly - l - ornithine ; ( 8 ) condition 1 or 3 on matrigel . 1 . 3 quantification of the doubling time of human adult gscs and human es cells . for this experiment 3 × 10 5 cells per plate from three different passages of human adult gscs and human es cells were seeded in 6 - well plates . clusters were cut from human adult gscs and human es cultures , digested , counted and replated every 24 h over a time period of 120 h . the isolated cells were transposed into specific established culture media to initiate differentiation into all three germ layers . we used specific protocols for myogenic 27 , 28 , osteo - genic 29 , 30 , pancreatic 31 - 33 and neural 34 , 35 differentiation of human es cells . all the differentiation protocols were repeated at least three times under each set of conditions using mechanically isolated clusters from human adult gscs and human es ( h1 ) cells . 1 . 5 alkaline phosphatase staining of cytospins of human adult gscs and human es cells . for staining , clusters were mechanically isolated and dissociated with trypsin edta for 5 min at 37 ° c . after blocking with 10 % fcs and washing with pbs , 1 × 10 6 cells were resuspended in 0 . 5 ml pbs and centrifuged as cytospins for 4 min at 1 , 100 r . p . m . then the spins were fixed with 2 % paraformaldehyde for 5 min and stained with nbt / bcip . hek293 cells were used as controls . to characterize human spermatogonia , human adult gscs and the differentiation into derivatives of the three primary germ layers , we examined the expression of a panel of cell - specific proteins for spermatogonial cells , human es cells and markersofmyogenic , osteogenic , pancreatic and neural differentiated cells . the following primary antibodies were used : mouse monoclonal biotinylated anti - cd49f ( biolegend ), rabbit polyclonal anti - oct4 ( abcam ), mouse monoclonal anti - ssea4 ( chemicon ), rabbit polyclonal anti - nanog ( biozol ), mouse monoclonal anti - e - cadherin ( r & amp ; d systems ), goat polyclonal anti - human vasa ( r & amp ; d systems ), rat monoclonal anti - stella ( r & amp ; d systems ), rabbit polyclonal anti - p27 ( abcam ), mouse monoclonal anti - sox17 ( r & amp ; d systems ), goat polyclonal anti - foxa2 ( r & amp ; d systems ), rat monoclonal anti - cxcr4 ( bd pharmingen ), mouse monoclonal anti - gsc ( abnova ), mouse monoclonal anti - human c - peptide ( biovendor ), rabbit polyclonal anti - insulin ( santa cruz ), rabbit polyclonal anti - human glucagon ( dako ), mouse monoclonal anti - α - actinin ( sigma ), rabbit polyclonal anti - smooth muscle actin ( spring bioscience ), rabbit polyclonal anti - glia fibrillary acidic protein ( gfap ) ( dako ), mouse monoclonal anti - b - tubulin - iii ( tuj - 1 ) ( convance ), mouse monoclonal anti - neurofilament ( dako ), mouse monoclonal anti - glutamate ( sigma ), rabbit polyclonal anti - gaba ( sigma ), rabbitpolyclonalanti - cytokeratin ( dako ), and mouse monoclonal anti - α - fetoprotein ( chemicon ). alexa fluor - 488 - conjugated goat anti - mouse igg , alexa fluor - 488 - conjugated goat anti - rabbit igg , alexa fluor - 488 - conjugated goat anti - rat igg ( molecular probes ), cy3 - conjugated goat anti - mouse igg , cy - conjugated goat anti - rabbit igg and cy - conjugated goat anti - rat igg ( dianova ) were used as secondary antibodies with co - staining with dapi . in addition biotinylated swine anti - rabbit , biotinylated rabbit anti - mouse and biotinylated goat anti - rat ( dako ) with abc complex ( streptavidin / horseradish peroxidase ) and dab staining with haemalaun or dapi as co - staining were used . for negative controls , isotype mouse , goat , rat or rabbit iggs were used . alkaline phosphatase staining was carried out using nbt / bcip substrate ( roche ). clusters of human adult gscs , h1 , hek293 and human adult gsc neural differentiated cells were lysed in ripa buffer and sonicated . the probes were denatured in sample buffer , analysed in a 12 % sds - page and after blotting stained with the specific antibodies for nanog , oct4 , ssea4 , e - cadherin , stat3 ( santa cruz ) and pstat3 ( santa cruz ). for negative control hek293 or blocking peptides for stat3 and pstat3 were used ( data not shown ). tissues and cells were homogenized in lysis buffer and total rna was prepared using the rneasy mini kit ( qiagen ). cdna for human es cells was obtained from the stem cell line h1 . mrna was reverse transcribed using oligo ( dt ) 23 primer ( sigma ) and supercriptii - transcriptase ( invitrogen ). cdna was amplified using the primers and conditions shown in supplementary table 1 . steady state mrna levels were enumerated by quantitative rt - pcr ( qrt - pcr , lightcycler , roche ) as described 36 . the qrt - pcr was performed as touch - down pcr in 35 cycle 37 . quantification of gapdh and serial dilutions of recombinant standard dnas served as controls in each pcr . transcript amounts are presented as copy numbers normalized to gapdh and the recombinant standards . analysis of melting curves confirmed product quality after each pcr . the following unconjugated and conjugated antibodies were used for facs analysis : mouse monoclonal anti - cd34 ( bd pharmingen ), anti - cd44 - fitc ( becton dickinson ), mouse monoclonal anti - cd45 ( bd pharmingen ), anti - cd90 - apc ( bd - pharmingen ), mouse monoclonal anti - cd105 ( ancell ), anti - cd117 - fitc ( chemicon ), mouse monoclonal anti - cd133 ( university clinic of tübingen ), rat monoclonal anti - ssea3 ( r & amp ; d systems ), anti - ssea4 - apc ( bd pharmingen ), mouse monoclonal tra 1 - 60 , mouse monoclonal tra 1 - 81 ( santa cruz ), e - cadherin ( r & amp ; d systems ) and the intracellular antibodies for oct4 , nanog ( abcam ) and pstat3 ( santa cruz ). for intracellular staining the cells were fixed with 2 % para - formaldehyde and permeabilized with 0 . 1 % triton x - 100 before labelling . at least 10 , 000 events were acquired on a facscanto ii cytometer ( becton dickinson ) using the facs express software for analysis . after embedding in epon ( fluka ), semithin sections ( 1 mm ) were prepared and from them ultrathin sections ( 100 nm ). semithin sections were stained with toluidine blue and embedded in epoxy resin for ultrathin sectioning in electron microscopy . digital micrographs were taken with a zeiss axioskop microscope . the methylation assay was conducted by epigenomics ( berlin ). briefly , after quality control was performed for 18 dna samples from spermatogonial cells ( directly after matrix selection ), human adult gscs ( from lower and higher passages ), human es cell line h1 and from human es cells ( obtained from s . minger ), the genomic dna was treated with sodium bisulphite . pcr primers were designed for the regions of interest in the specified genes . two regions of interestin the igf2r and h19 genes were studied . the first region in the h19 gene is 550 bp upstream of the vega h19 - 012 transcript within a cpg - rich region and at the 59 utr of the annotated ensembl transcript nr — 002196 . 1 within a cpg - rich region . it contains the tss of the reference sequence . the second region of interest in the igf2r gene is 273 bp upstream of the annotated ensembl transcript mpri_human near a cpg island and within the imprinting controlling region 1 ( icr1 ) and a cpg island in intron 2 . this region is known as imprinting controlling region 2 ( icr2 ). the following regions of interest in pou5f1 ( annotated oct4 orthologous human gene ) and nanog genes were studied : pou5f1 gene ( reference sequence : nm — 002701 ) amp1000122 located at the 59 utr of the annotated ensembl transcript pouf1_human ( enst00000259915 ), 150bp upstream of the tss . nanog gene ( reference sequence : nm — 024865 ) amp1000123 located at the 59 utr of the annotated ensembl transcript nanog_human ( enst00000229307 ), 25 bp upstream of the tss . the following bisulphite primers were used for pcr and for sequencing : h19 ( 5 ′ utr ) 5 ′- atattgaagtttttagag - tgtgattt - 3 ′ and 5 ′- ttccccttctatctcacca - 3 ′; igf2r ( tss ) 5 ′- tttttattttgttggatttgtgtt - 3 ′ and 5 ′- aacctcaatttcccctcc - 3 ′; h19 ( tss ) 5 ′- ggagatagtggtttgggag - 3 ′ and 5 ′- accccatcttcccc - taat - 3 ′; igf2r ( intron 2 ) 5 ′- ggtgtaggggatttaggg - 3 ′ and 5 ′- aaac - ctttttctacctcctttt - 3 ′; pou5f1 5 ′- atggtgtttgtggaagggg - aa - 3 ′ and 5 ′- tccaaacaactaaaatatacaaaacct - 3 ′; nanog 5 ′- taatatgaggtaattagtttagtttagt - 3 ′ and 5 ′- taatttcaaactctaacttcaaataat - 3 ′. in addition , dna from peripheral blood lymphocytes ( sample name pro ) and artificially hyper - and hypomethylated dna samples ( sample names up and down , respectively ) were included as controls . bisulphite - converted dna was amplified using these primers and the pcr products were directly sequenced . methylation results were quantified using epigenomics &# 39 ; proprietary software esme , which allows the quantification of dna methylation at single cpg positions . the statistical significance of the differential methylation observed between sample groups was tested using wilcoxon &# 39 ; s rank sum test . total rna was isolated from n = 3 independent cell preparations of spermatogonial cells ( directly after matrix selection ), human adult gscs ( from lower and higher passages ), human es cell line h1 and from human es cells ( obtained from s . minger ) using the rneasy mini kit ( qiagen ) followed by an amplification step with the messageamp arna kit ( ambion ). samples were analysed independently . gene expression analyses were performed using the human u133 + 2 . 0 genome oligonucleotide array ( affymetrix ) and all transcript intensities were gc - rma normalized and analysed with a t - test using the arrayassist 4 . 0 software ( stratagene ). transcripts with more than a twofold estimated difference in expression were further considered for evaluation . for stringent multiple testing correction we used the bonferroni - holm procedure . in addition , we applied the web - based interactome network entry tool developed by ingenuity systems . quantitative insulin determination by elisa was performed as described previously 33 . the supernatants were analysed with the insulin elisa kit ( yk060 , cosmo , ltd ) and the ultrasensitive c - peptide elisa kit ( mercodia ). for all implantation and transplantation experiments the mice were anaesthetized with an isoflurane inhalation system . the experimental protocols were approved by the local governmental council for animal care ( regierungspräsidium tübingen ) and were conducted according to the german law for the care and use of laboratory animals . approximately 1 × 10 7 human adult gscs were injected intramuscularly or subcutaneously in the neck region of adult nude mice . after 6 - 8 weeks the transplants and developed tumour regions were dissected , fixed in 4 % paraformaldehyde and embedded in paraffin . for the evaluation of transplant differentiation , teratoma formation was defined as being when tissue representatives of at least all three germ layers were detected in the implants . assessment of graft histology and function was performed by in situ hybridization , histochemistry with haemalaun and immunohistochemical methods . 1 . 18 microsatellite profile analysis of dna from all cells used in this study . genomic dna was extracted from the cell culture samples using the qiaamp microdna mini kit ( qiagen ). a selected set of dna microsatellite markers was sent to the local microarray facility ( tu { umlaut over ( )} bingen , germany ) for analysis . dna samples were pcr amplified using a multiplex microsatellite marker panel ( powerplex16 , promega ). amplicons were separated by capillary electrophoresis ( abi310 , appliedbiosystems ) and respective marker alleles were called using the powertyper macro in comparison with a co - analysed allelic ladder ( promega ). the inventors used in total 22 different human testicular parenchymas to generate human adult gscs . the obtained tissues were mechanically and enzymatically dissociated and filtered to obtain a single - cell suspension containing cells of varying sizes and shapes . in a next step the single cells were cultured for 4 days in uncoated dishes with knockout culture medium with glia - drived neutrotrophic ( gdnf ), a growth factor essential for the self - renewing division of spermatogonial stem cells 11 , or culture directly in leukaemia inhibitory factor ( lif ; ref . 12 )- supplemented medium ( basic medium ), which is sufficient to maintain mouse es cells or embryonic germ cells 13 , 14 in an undifferentiated state . under these conditions most of the single testis cells attached to the culture plate . for the pre - selection of spermatogonial cells with magnetic - activated cell separation ( macs ) the inventors used cd49f ( α 6 integrin ) 15 , 16 , a marker selected by the inventors from the different tested surface antigens . by using other antibodies like cd90 ( thy - 1 ) or gdnfr - α1 , which have been described in the literature for mouse spermatogonial stem cell enrichment ( see for example 17 , 18 ), or cd133 ( a marker for human es and precursor cells ) the inventors achieved comparable but not better selection ( data not shown ). an important tool to gain a highly pure spermatogonial cell population is the subsequent matrix selection procedure with collagen and laminin 19 to extract spermatogonial cells for further cultivation with basic medium and lif to generate human adult gscs . with this procedure the inventors were able to obtain a pure population of spermatogonial cells ( vasa + vimentin − ) and completely deplete somatic cells ( vasa + vimentin − ) ( fig1 ). after this selection and purification , colonies of spermatogonial cells appeared ( fig2 a , panel 1 ) and increased in size ( fig2 a , panel 2 ). after 10 - 15 days , these colonies changed their morphology ( fig2 a , panel 3 ), became multilayered and clearly demarcated colonies with boundaries appeared ( fig2 a , panel 4 ). these colonies continued to increase in number and size ( fig2 a , far right panel ). functional proof is provided by the fact that the negative fraction of somatic cells ( vasa − vimentin + ) did not form stem cell colonies under lif supplementation and were negative for stem cells markers , and even more importantly did not form any teratomas . in contrast , even after long - term cultivation the vasa 1 vimentin 2 human adult gsc colonies behaved more like human es cells in their molecular profile and differentiation capacity , and formation of teratomas . electron microscopy of purified spermatogonial cells showed typical morphological characteristics of spermatogonia . a more detailed immunohistochemical characterization revealed that these cells were positive for vasa , ssea4 , oct4 , tspyl2 , dazl , cd133 and cd49f , but negative for nanog and e - cadherin and the somatic marker vimentin ( fig1 , 3 a ). generally the cells were passaged once or twice 3 to 4 weeks after initiation of the culture . after passaging the multilayered colonies reappeared with constant doubling times up to high passages ( over 40 and higher ). the inventors also tested different medium conditions for their ability to induce the generation of human adult gscs ( fig2 d ). to do this , the inventors plated spermatogonial cells for 14 days under different conditions and observed the formed colonies over another 42 - day period ( fig . 2 d ). without supplementation with gdnf and lif no clusters were formed at all . in contrast , both lif alone and gdnf followed by lif resulted in a constant rate of cluster formation over 42 days ; with gdnf alone and gdnf with fgf2 clusters were formed , but the proliferation rate declined after 14 days . the combination of lif and fgf2 did not improve human adult gsc culture . to prove the dependence of the inventor &# 39 ; s stem cells on lif supplementation , lif and gp130 receptors were detected in human adult gscs with polymerase chain reaction with reverse transcription ( rt - pcr ; fig2 b ). furthermore , western blot analysis of stat3 and phosphorylated stat3 showed that this pathway is activated in human adult gscs . these observations imply that lif has a role in human adult gsc propagation . to test the expansion rate the inventors compared the doubling times of different passages of human adult gscs to those of human es ( h1 ) cells , counting the total cell numbers at 24 - h intervals for approximately 120 h . the doubling times of human adult gscs were very similar to those of human es cells across lower and higher passages ( fig2 e ). for a more detailed examination of the human adult gsc colonies the inventors performed immunohistochemical analysis and compared them to selected spermatogonial cells and normal adult human testis ( fig1 , 3 a , c ). in normal adult human testis tissue , spermatogonia were positive for cd133 , ssea4 , vasa , dazl , tspyl2 and cd49f , but negative for nanog , e - cadherin , oct4 and stella . the same staining pattern was shown by the purified human spermatogonial cells , except that the transcription factor oct4 started to be expressed ( fig1 and 3 a ). only morphologically typical sertoli cells in the human testis stained positive for p27 . alkaline phosphatase was highly expressed in cytospins of undifferentiated human adult gscs and human es cells , in contrast to differentiated hek293 control cells ( fig3 b ). in contrast , the generated human adult gsc colonies were strongly positive for nanog , e - cadherin , oct4 , cd133 and ssea4 ( es cell markers ) ( fig3 a , c ), but negative for p27 ( a sertoli cell marker ) and stella ( a pgc marker ) ( fig3 a , panel 1 ). the human adult gscs were also strongly positive for vasa , cd49f and dazl ( fig3 a , c ). fluorescence - activated cell sorting ( facs ) analysis provided quantitative information on the proportion of human adult gsc cells under lif - supplemented culture conditions expressing particular surface markers in comparison to h1 . these human es cells typically expressed cd90 , cd133 , nanog , e - cadherin , oct4 , ssea4 , ssea3 , tra 1 - 60 , tra 1 - 81 and phosphorylated stat3 , and were negative for cd34 , cd45 , cd105 and cd117 . in comparison , the expression profile of human adult gscs was very similar . the only difference observed was the expression of cd117 ( c - kit ). rt - pcr analysis was carried out with cdna from adult human testis , spermatogonial cells , human es ( h1 ) and human adult gscs ( under two different medium conditions ) from lower and higher passages . in adult human testis and spermatogonial cells , stem cell and spermatogonial cell markers ( oct4 , n - cadherin , stat3 , sox2 , afp , stella , dazl , vasa ) were expressed , but not the markers nanog , e - cadherin and gdf3 . in contrast , human adult gscs expressed all of these markers . under lif supplementation , the cultured human adult gscs started to express the es cell factors nanog , e - cadherin and gdf3 as well , markers which were not expressed in the adult human testis and spermatogonial cells . western blot analysis also showed that nanog , e - cadherin , oct4 and ssea4 were expressed by human adult gscs under lif supplementation ( supplementary fig4 c ). these results suggest that human adult gscs respond to culture conditions and acquire more human es cell properties . the expression of spermatogonial and human es cell markers is maintained even in higher passages . this indicates that the cultured human adult gscs have a stable , stem - cell - like phenotype . in a next step the inventors investigated and compared the global gene expression patterns of spermatogonial cells , human es cells and human adult gscs by microarray analysis ( fig4 a ). after principal component analysis ( pca ) of germ - and stem - cell - specific transcripts the inventors found very similar gene expression profiles of human adult gscs and human es cells with minor differences . in contrast , the expression profile of spermatogonial cells changed during development to human adult gscs . the gene products in which expression was found to differ significantly between human es cells and human adult gscs are involved in tissue , organ and embryonic development , cell cycle , cellular assembly and organization , and cellular growth and proliferation . expression profiles of human es and germ cell markers in the three different cell types are shown in supplementary table 2 . among the genes most significantly upregulated in human adult gscs in comparison to human es cells are members of the wnt - b - catenin and tgf - b signalling pathways . fig4 b shows selected examples of stem cell and testis marker expression profiles from the molecular analysis comparing human adult gscs , human es cells and spermatogonial cells . expression analysis of human adult gscs compared with human es cells and spermatogonial cells revealed high levels of stat3 , cd9 , klf4 , otex and vasa in both human adult gscs and human es cells . pou6f1 and dazl expression was stronger in human adult gscs . oct4 , e - cadherin , nanog , sox2 and gdf3 expression was stronger in human es cells . minimal expression of the germ cell marker stella was seen in all cell types . spag9 and tspyl2 were more highly expressed in spermatogonial cells , which clearly indicates their germline origin . the real - time pcr analysis demonstrated that human es cells and human adult gscs both express a similar transcription profile of markers used to characterize human es cells ( fig4 c ). the alignment of genes showed few differences and the human adult gscs differed from human es cells only in expression potency . taken together , the examinations of transcription in human es and human adult gscs provide evidence of a network of genes characteristic of pluripotent stem cells . to determine whether the maintenance of genomic imprinting was compromised the inventors assessed the methylation pattern of the imprinted genes h19 and igf2r with dna isolated from human es cells ( h1 , p48 ), spermatogonial cells ( p0 ) and human adult gscs from four different normal patients obtained from two passages ( lp , p1 - p3 ; hp , p7 - p36 ). spermatogonial cells showed a typical methylation pattern known for male germ cells , with hypermethylation of the maternal differentially methylated region ( dmr ) located at the 5 ′ untranslated region ( utr ) of the h19 gene and no methylation of the paternal dmr imprinting control region surrounding the transcriptional start site ( tss ) of the igf2r gene . the same methylation was observed for undifferentiated hi cells which have a normal xy karyotype . in general , both spermatogonial and h1 cells were hypermethylated (& gt ; 90 %) at the 5 ′ utr of the h19 gene and showed about 75 % methylation in human adult gscs . the amplificate located surrounding the tss of the igf2r gene was unmethylated (& lt ; 5 %) in all samples studied . the inventors did not find differential methylation among the different human adult gsc groups in any of the analysed regions when samples were grouped according to cluster or when samples of lower and higher passages of human adult gscs were compared ( data not shown ). these observations indicate that human adult gscs change their methylation pattern in the dmr of imprinting sites and display a pattern similar to that of mouse spermatogonial stem cells as shown previously 5 . in addition , when analyzing other sites of expected differential methylation , h1 cells showed higher methylation ( approximately 75 %) than spermatogonial cells and human adult gscs ( approximately 50 %) in the amplificate surrounding the tss of the h19 gene . in turn , the imprinting controlling region ( icr ) within intron 2 of the igf2r gene was differentially methylated in spermatogonial cells , h1 and human adult gscs ( approximately 50 %, 100 % and 75 %, respectively ). next the inventors investigated dna methylation levels on the putative human oct4 ( also called pou5f1 ) and nanog promoters . as shown in fig4 d , when dna methylation results were grouped by cell type the inventors found regions of differential methylation . amplificates located at the 5 ′ utr of the oct4 and nanog genes showed cell - type - specific dna methylation of spermatogonial cells , h1 cells and human adult gscs . whereas spermatogonial cells were hypermethylated ( 100 %) at the 5 ′ utr of the oct4 gene , hi cells ( 60 %) and human adult gscs ( 50 %) were less methylated at cpg genomic position 25 - 168 , but were hypermethylated ( 100 %) between positions 330 and 396 . in addition , spermatogonial cells were again hypermethylated ( approximately 90 %) at the 5 ′ utr of the nanog gene , whereas hi cells displayed low methylation ( approximately 20 %) and human adult gscs also showed clearly lower ( approximately 40 %) methylation than spermatogonial cells . these results indicate that the epigenetic state of the oct4 and nanog promoter genes was reprogrammed to a more human es - like state when human adult gscs were generated from spermatogonial cells . human adult gscs were also examined for their pluripotency in forming teratomas in vivo after injection in immunodeficient mice . the human adult gsc cells from eight different patients were injected ( n = 4 sets of cells per patient ) and gave rise to typical teratoma structures in nude mice by 6 to 8 weeks after the transplantation ( fig5 , and supplementary table 3 ). the tumors contained foci with derivatives of endodermal , mesodermal and ectodermal embryonic germ layers : stratified cell epithelium ( fig5 , panel 1 ), neuronal cells , cartilage , muscle ( fig5 , panel 2 ), glandular structures ( fig5 , panel 3 ) and endodermal high prismatic epithelium ( fig5 , panel 3 ). immunostaining was carried out with the germ layer markers cytokeratin for epithelial tissue in endoderm , tuj - 1 for neuroectodermal cells and a - fetoprotein ( afp ) for endoderm . alcian blue stained hyaline cartilage and epithelial glands . in general , the generation of human adult gscs from spermatogonial cells was reproducible : similar cell numbers were obtained from biopsies obtained from the 22 male patients ( 10 normal , 10 azoospermia , 2 sex reassignment surgeries ) aged 17 to 81 years ( data not shown ). after selection the obtained yields of spermatogonial cells were age - dependent . lesser amounts were generated from older people and patients with azoospermia . however , the doubling times of human adult gsc colonies were similar in all groups ( data not shown ). human adult gscs were successfully passaged for continuous undifferentiated proliferation in basic medium with lif for up to 16 months and over more than 40 passages . the inventors did not observe a decline in the ability to form colony units between passages 3 and 36 ( fig2 e ). the colonies had a doubling time of 48 h . the undifferentiated human adult gscs could be cryopreserved and thawed with no loss of proliferation or differentiation capacity . no replicative crisis was observed in any of the 22 different cell lines . cytogenetic analysis showed that human adult gscs had a normal karyotype ( 46 chromosomes , xy ) in all examined metaphase spreads . to determine whether human adult gscs can differentiate in vitro , the inventors applied commonly used methods designed to induce differentiation of human es cells into various cell lineages . on the whole , differentiated human adult gscs displayed all morphological characteristics of the expected myogenic , osteogenic , pancreatic and neural lineages . to analyze the differentiation capacity of human es ( h1 ) and human adult gscs , the cells were differentiated into all specific lineages . the results were comparable , diverging only in the pancreatic lineage , where the inventors generated more insulin , glucagon - and c - peptide - positive cells from human adult gscs . to exclude possible contaminations during cell culturing , dna microsatellite markers were analyzed in dna preparations of all established cell cultures and compared with a marker profile of h1 embryonic stem cells . all cell cultures were analyzed after completion of all other experiments and showed independent genetic origins ( data not shown ), that is , each cell line is unique . moreover , the inventors never observed more than two marker alleles , thus excluding relevant cell or dna contamination for all cell lines . 1 . de rooij , d . g . rapid expansion of the spermatogonial stem cell tool box . proc . natl acad . sci . usa 103 , 7939 - 7940 ( 2006 ). 2 . brinster , r . l . & amp ; avarbock , m . r . germline transmission of donor haplotype following spermatogonial transplantation . proc . natl acad . sci . usa 91 , 11303 - 11307 ( 1994 ). 3 . kubota , h . & amp ; brinster , r . l . technology insight : in vitro culture of spermatogonial stem cells and their potential therapeutic uses . nature clin . pract . endocrinol . metab . 2 , 99 - 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