Katsuhiko Hayashi

Reconstitution of female germ cell development in vitro is a key challenge in reproductive biology and medicine. We show here that female (XX) embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells in mice are induced into primordial germ cell-like cells (PGCLCs), which, when aggregated with female gonadal somatic cells as reconstituted ovaries, undergo X-reactivation, imprint erasure, and cyst formation, and exhibit meiotic potential. Upon transplantation under mouse ovarian bursa, PGCLCs in t

These results illustrate that miRNAs are important for the proliferation of PGCs and spermatogonia, but dispensable for the repression of retrotransposons in developing germ cells. Consistently, miRNAs promoting cell cycling are highly expressed in PGCs and spermatogonia. Furthermore, based on normal spermatogenesis in Argonaute2-deficient testis, the critical function of Dicer in spermatogenesis is independent of Argonaute2.

Specification of germ cells in mice occurs relatively late in embryonic development. It is initiated by signals that induce expression of Blimp1, a key regulator of the germ cell, in a few epiblast cells of early postimplantation embryos. Blimp1 represses the incipient somatic program in these cells and promotes progression toward the germ cell fate. Blimp1 may also have a role in the maintenance of early germ cell characteristics by ensuring their escape from the somatic fate as well as possibl

Germ cells differentiate into sexually dimorphic gametes, oocytes, and spermatozoa, which unite to form new individuals. Accordingly, germ cell development entails intricate regulations of genome functions for genetic and epigenetic inheritance. The past decade has seen considerable advances in in vitro gametogenesis (IVG), which aims to recreate germ cell development from pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) in culture. Mouse PSCs can be induced into functional oocytes and spermatozoa, whereas human P

Pluripotent epiblast stem cells (EpiSCs) derived from postimplantation embryos exhibit properties that are characteristically different when compared with pluripotent embryonic stem cells (ESCs) derived from mouse blastocysts. However, EpiSCs are relatively less well characterised compared with ESCs. In particular, the relationship between EpiSCs and primordial germ cells (PGCs) is unknown, and is worthy of investigation because PGCs originate from postimplantation epiblast cells in vivo. We sho

Oocytes mature in a specialized fluid-filled sac, the ovarian follicle, which provides signals needed for meiosis and germ cell growth. Methods have been developed to generate functional oocytes from pluripotent stem cell-derived primordial germ cell-like cells (PGCLCs) when placed in culture with embryonic ovarian somatic cells. In this study, we developed culture conditions to recreate the stepwise differentiation process from pluripotent cells to fetal ovarian somatic cell-like cells (FOSLCs)

B cell antigen receptor signals development, activation, proliferation, or apoptosis of B cells depending on their condition, and its proper signaling is critical for activation and homeostasis of the immune system. The B cell-restricted adaptor protein BASH (also termed BLNK/SLP-65) is rapidly phosphorylated by the tyrosine kinase Syk after BCR ligation and binds to various signaling proteins. BASH structurally resembles SLP-76, which is essential for T cell development and T cell receptor sign