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Creating human germ cells for unmet reproductive needs

Nature Biotechnology volume 34, pages 470–473 (2016)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

Current assisted reproductive technology (ART), such as in vitro fertilization and intracytoplasmic sperm injection, depends on the premise that both partners produce fertile eggs or sperm (gametes). As yet, there is no ART treatment for individuals with few or no gametes, unless donor gametes are used. Ongoing research suggests that autologous female or male germ cells may be regenerated from somatic cells by controlling cell fate; if so, there is a possibility that ART might aid infertile couples and even same-sex couples in the future. Before such ART treatments using induced germ cells can be considered in the clinical context, however, a great many questions concerning the safety and efficacy of such procedures must be answered. Moreover, profound ethical and social concerns will arise if such induced germ cells are needlessly generated, cryopreserved and used for reproductive purposes in clinics without a definition of their appropriate roles in ART. As a response to the increasing feasibility of inducing germ cells from human pluripotent stem cells, we discuss below the current technical challenges to creating induced human germ cells and explore some of the ethical, legal and social issues associated with their use in clinical practice.

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Figure 1: Three potential approaches for inducing fertile germ cells by stem cell technology.

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Acknowledgements

We thank H.T. Greely for reading the initial version of this manuscript. This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. KAKENHI grant 26460586 (T.I.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tetsuya Ishii is at the Office of Health and Safety, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan,

    Tetsuya Ishii

  2. Renee A. Reijo Pera is in the Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, USA.,

    Renee A Reijo Pera

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  1. Tetsuya Ishii
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Correspondence to Tetsuya Ishii.

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Ishii, T., Pera, R. Creating human germ cells for unmet reproductive needs. Nat Biotechnol 34, 470–473 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3559

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