Scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich have used a modification technique to grow rat sperm cells inside sterile mice.
Professor Ori Bar-Nur and his team injected rat pluripotent stem cells into modified mice blastocysts that lacked a gene to produce sperm.
'In the absence of these cell types, there’s just an empty area in the testes that can be colonised by the rat cells,' said Professor Bar-Nur. 'It provides them the space and the exclusive potential to eventually give rise to germ cells, because of the lack of the mouse counterparts.'
When the mice grew to adulthood, they produced rat sperm cells that were able to fertilise female rat eggs. However, the fertilised eggs did not develop normally nor produce live offspring.
Professor Bar-Nur hopes the technique can be developed to produce rats that contain human DNA for biomedical research or to produce sperm or eggs of endangered or extinct species.
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