In Drosophila, germ cell survival and directionality of migration are controlled by two lipid phosphate phosphatases (LPP), wunen (wun) and wunen-2 (wun2). wun wun2 double mutant analysis reveals that the two genes, hereafter collectively called wunens, act redundantly in primordial germ cells. We find that wunens mediate germ cell-germ cell repulsion and that this repulsion is necessary for ge...

background:gossypol is a yellow toxic pigment from the cottonseed that can cause acute or chronic toxicity in humans and animals by affecting the testicular tissues. nowadays cottonseed is used as food supplement for ruminants specially the sheep. in this study, two different stem cell lines of testicular tissue including gc1-spg (mouse testis) and sftf-pi43 (sheep testis) cells were used to ev...

malignant germ-cell tumors (mgct) are rare tumors of childhood accounting for less than 3% of pediatric malignancies. endodermal sinus tumor (est) forms the most common histologic subtype of mgct. the vagina is an extremely rare site for gcts. an 8-month-old female was admitted with a short history of vaginal bleeding, and a mass protruding from the vagina. she was pale and a mass was palpable ...

The germ line is unique in that highly specialised cells must be formed while retaining genomic totipotency. In mice, germ cells are derived from the pluripotent epiblast cells under the influence of inductive signals. This specification event involves reactivation or maintenance of core regulators of pluripotency, activation of germ line specific genetic programs, silencing of somatic cell pro...

In this study we show that mouse primordial germ cells and fetal germ cells at certain stages of differentiation express E-cadherin and alpha and beta catenins. Moreover, we demonstrate that the formation of germ cell aggregates that rapidly occurs when monodispersed germ cell populations are released from embryonic gonads in culture is E-cadherin mediated, developmentally regulated, and depend...

Segregation of the germ line from the soma is an essential event for transmission of genetic information across generations in all sexually reproducing animals. Although some well-studied systems such as Drosophila and Xenopus use maternally inherited germ determinants to specify germ cells, most animals, including mice, appear to utilize zygotic inductive cell signals to specify germ cells dur...

In the mouse, germ cells can undergo differentiation to become either oocytes or spermatozoa in response to sex of their gonadal environment. The nature of the germ cell-intrinsic aspects of this signaling have not been well studied. The earliest known sex-specific difference in germ cells is the initiation of meiosis in female, but not male, embryonic germ cells. Experiments were performed sho...

Segregation of the germ line from the soma is an essential event for transmission of genetic information across generations in all sexually reproducing animals. Although some well-studied systems such as Drosophila and Xenopus usematernally inherited germ determinants to specify germ cells, most animals, including mice, appear to utilize zygotic inductive cell signals to specify germ cells duri...