Chinese scientists have developed new eggs in mice using stem cells extracted from their ovaries. And the same approach could eventually offer a new way to treat infertility in women.
In mammals, egg production stops before birth. But the scientists isolated germline stem cells, cultured them for six months and then injected them into the ovaries of the infertile mice. Eighty percent of the female mice went on to deliver mouse pups after normal mating.
"The finding may have important implications in regenerative and reproductive medicine," they wrote in the journal Nature Cell Biology.
"A lot more work is needed to understand what these new cells really are, and to verify the findings and the claims," Robin Lovell-Badge at the MRC National Institute For Medical Research tells Reuters.
- read the report in Reuters