Licensing of Primordial Germ Cells for Gametogenesis Depends on Genital Ridge Signaling
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Hu-2015-Licensing of Primordial.pdf
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Author(s)
Hu, Yueh-Chiang
Nicholls, Peter K.
Soh, Ying Qi Shirleen
Daniele, Joseph R.
Junker, Jan Philipp
van Oudenaarden, Alexander
Page, David C
Date Issued
March 2015
Journal
PLOS Genetics
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Citation
Hu, Yueh-Chiang, Peter K. Nicholls, Y. Q. Shirleen Soh, Joseph R. Daniele, Jan Philipp Junker, Alexander van Oudenaarden, and David C. Page. “Licensing of Primordial Germ Cells for Gametogenesis Depends on Genital Ridge Signaling.” Edited by R. Scott Hawley. PLoS Genet 11, no. 3 (March 4, 2015): e1005019.
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Final published version
Abstract
In mouse embryos at mid-gestation, primordial germ cells (PGCs) undergo licensing to become gametogenesis-competent cells (GCCs), gaining the capacity for meiotic initiation and sexual differentiation. GCCs then initiate either oogenesis or spermatogenesis in response to gonadal cues. Germ cell licensing has been considered to be a cell-autonomous and gonad-independent event, based on observations that some PGCs, having migrated not to the gonad but to the adrenal gland, nonetheless enter meiosis in a time frame parallel to ovarian germ cells -- and do so regardless of the sex of the embryo. Here we test the hypothesis that germ cell licensing is cell-autonomous by examining the fate of PGCs in Gata4 conditional mutant (Gata4 cKO) mouse embryos. Gata4, which is expressed only in somatic cells, is known to be required for genital ridge initiation. PGCs in Gata4 cKO mutants migrated to the area where the genital ridge, the precursor of the gonad, would ordinarily be formed. However, these germ cells did not undergo licensing and instead retained characteristics of PGCs. Our results indicate that licensing is not purely cell-autonomous but is induced by the somatic genital ridge.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1005019
