Stem-cell 'cure' for female infertility in offing?

13 April 2009

A new stem-cell study on mice by a team of Chinese scientists may have paved the way to a cure for infertility in women. The research challenges the long-held belief that most female mammals, including humans, are born with a fixed number of eggs and are unable increase their number throughout their lives.

The study by scientists at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, led by Ji Wu, pointed at the possibility that it is possible to prolong the working life of ovaries by transplanting female stem cells that develop into mature eggs. Thus, stem-cell injections may one day make it possible for women to someday be able to delay menopause, or even create new ova after this inevitable event.

The findings raise the prospect of treating some forms of female infertility where the ovaries do not produce eggs. The hope is that one day stem cell transplants could replenish the supply of fresh eggs in infertile women.

As long as four years ago, US scientists showed it was possible to obtain stem cells from the ovaries of adult women and grow them into mature egg cells. Scientists have been following this train of research ever since.

Now the Chinese scientists have shown that it is possible to isolate stem cells from both immature and mature ovaries of mice, store the cells in the laboratory, and then transplant them back into sterile females to enable them to give birth to healthy offspring.

The scientists isolated female germ-line stem cells of newborn mice and adult females. They cultured them for up to 15 months and six months respectively before transplanting them into the ovaries of sterile mice, which gave birth to healthy offspring.