The potency of human testicular stem cells

In this thesis, we evaluate the stem cell state of cells present in primary human testicular cell cultures as well as their origin and relation to germ or somatic lineages within testicular tissue. We conclude that human testis-derived embryonic stem cell-like (htES-like) colonies arising in primary testicular cell cultures do not have pluripotent characteristics and do not arise due to spontaneous in vitro transition of propagated spennatogonia, but are multipotent mesenchymal somatic progenitors originated from the testis during isolation. Furthermore, we focused on somatic progenitors present in the primary testicular cell cultures and described for first time a method to isolate the uncommitted human LC stem cell based on their surface markers expression profile. Although the methods of expansion and differentiation of these isolated uncommitted LC stem cells need further improvement, the described method could provide the basis for stem cell therapy implying autotransplantation of autologus LC progenitors to overcome hypogonadism occurring after high dose chemotherapy and other conditions requiring androgen replacement.