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. 2011 Jul 12;21(8):1164–1171. doi: 10.1038/cr.2011.111

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Characteristics of GS and eGS cells. (A) GS cells are cultured in the presence of growth factors, e.g., GDNF, EGF, and bFGF. Cultured GS cells have a self-renewing property, androgenetic genomic imprinting, and normal karyotype that is stable during a 2-year-long culture. GS cells also have stem cell activity because GS cells form germ cell colonies by germ cell transplantation into seminiferous tubules of infertile W mouse testes. The mGS cells are derived from GS cells acquiring pluripotency accompanied by loss of spermatogenic potential during GS cell culture. (B) eGS cells from fetal male germ cells from embryos at 13.5 dpc. Although eGS cells are morphologically indistinguishable from GS cells established from postnatal mouse testes, express markers identical to that expressed in SSCs, normal DNA methylation patterns, and spermatogenic potential, these cells showed abnormal histone modification patterns in DMRs of imprinted genes. Moreover, eGS-cells-derived F1 offspring and subsequent generations showed abnormal DNA methylation patterns in H19 DMR. This heritable imprinting defect may be caused by residual aberrant histone modifications that could not be reprogrammed. Bars, 100 μm.