Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Reply to Adult human and mouse ovaries lack DDX4-expressing functional oogonial stem cells

Nature Medicine volume 21, pages 1118–1121 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

Woods and Tilly reply

Zhang et al.1 state that they were unable to repeat findings presented in our 2012 publication in Nature Medicine regarding the characterization of oogonial stem cells (OSCs) in mouse and human ovaries2, using methods further detailed a year later3. Separately, Hernandez et al.4 question the specificity of antibodies that target the C terminus of DDX4 (DEAD box polypeptide 4) to viably sort OSCs from adult mouse, monkey and human ovaries, as we reported2,3. Although these two correspondences focus on our work from 2012, DDX4-specific antibody–based sorting of OSCs was first published in 2009 by another laboratory5. A year before this publication, Richards et al.6 reported isolation of viable germ cells from cultures of human embryonic stem cells using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) coupled with DDX4-specific antibodies. Our 2012 study therefore represents independent methodological verification of these two earlier reports.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Characterization of viable DDX4-positive ovarian cells isolated by FACS.

References

  1. Zhang, H. et al. Nat. Med. 21, 1116–1118 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. White, Y.A.R. et al. Nat. Med. 18, 413–421 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Woods, D.C. & Tilly, J.L. Nat. Protoc. 8, 966–988 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Hernandez, S.F. et al. Nat. Med. 21, 1114–1116 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Zou, K. et al. Nat. Cell Biol. 11, 631–636 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Richards, M., Fong, C.-Y. & Bongso, A. Fertil. Steril. 93, 986–994 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Pacchiarotti, J. et al. Differentiation 79, 159–170 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Zhang, Y. et al. J. Mol. Cell Biol. 3, 132–141 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Zou, K., Hou, L., Sun, K., Xie, W. & Wu, J. Stem Cells Dev. 20, 2197–2204 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Imudia, A.N. et al. Fertil. Steril. 100, 1451–1458 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Zhou, L. et al. Mol. Hum. Reprod. 20, 271–281 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Grieve, K.M., McLaughlin, M., Dunlop, C.E., Telfer, E.E. & Anderson, R.A. Maturitas doi:10.1016/j.maturitas.2015.07.017 (26 July 2015).

  13. Silvestris, E., D'Oronzo, S., Cafforio, P., D'Amato, G. & Loverno, G. J. Ovarian Res. 8, 55 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Xie, W., Wang, H. & Wu, J. Sci. Reports 4, 5580 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Park, E.S. & Tilly, J.L. Mol. Hum. Reprod. 21, 58–65 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Khosravi-Farsani, S., Amidi, F., Roudkenar, M.H. & Sobhani, A. Cell J. 16, 406–415 (2015).

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  17. Fakih, M.H. et al. JFIV Reprod. Med. Genet. 3, 154 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank K. Chandrasekhar and D. Navaroli for generating the new data presented in Figure 1, and the we thank the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) for funding support (R37-AG012279, R21-HD072280).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Laboratory of Aging and Infertility Research, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Dori C Woods & Jonathan L Tilly

  2. Office of the Dean of the College of Science, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Jonathan L Tilly

Authors
  1. Dori C Woods
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jonathan L Tilly
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Dori C Woods or Jonathan L Tilly.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

D.C.W. discloses interest in intellectual property described in US Patent 8,642,329 and US Patent 8,647,869, and is a recipient of a corporate sponsored research award from OvaScience (Cambridge, Massachusetts). J.L.T. discloses interest in intellectual property described in US Patent 7,195,775, US Patent 7,850,984, US Patent 7,955,846, US Patent 8,642,329, US Patent 8,647,869 and US Patent 8,652,840; is a scientific co-founder of OvaScience; and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of OvaScience.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table 1

Baboon-specific gene expression analysis (PDF 83 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Woods, D., Tilly, J. Reply to Adult human and mouse ovaries lack DDX4-expressing functional oogonial stem cells. Nat Med 21, 1118–1121 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.3964

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.3964

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing