Mammalian haploid embryonic stem cells (haESCs) can be derived from androgenetic or parthenogenetic embryos of different species, including mouse, rat and monkey. However, whether haploid ESCs can be generated from human remains unknown.
On May 17th, a team of researchers, led by Prof. LI Jinsong of Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology (SIBCB), Institutions of Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (SIBS), Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS) and CHEN Zi-Jiang and WU Keliang of Ren Ji Hospital from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, has reported the generation of human haploid embryonic stem cells.
To generate human haploid embryos, ZHONG Cuiqing, ZHANG Meiling and their colleagues adopted two different methods. First, they obtained parthenogenetic (PG) haploid blastocysts by chemical activation of human oocytes. From PG blastocysts, they derived 3 ESC lines. However, no haploid cells could be enriched in these cells. Second, they produced PG haploid blastocysts by removal of male pronucleus from zygotes. They derived 4 ESC lines, two of which, contained substantial haploid cells. The haploidy could be well maintained in these cells for over 30 passages via fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS)-enrichment of haploid cells.
These PG haploid ESCs expressed classical human ESC markers and could differentiate into various cell types of all three embryonic layers in vitro and in vivo. Interestingly, human PG haploid ESCs, different from mouse PG haploid ESCs, in which, DNA methylation was quickly lost at maternally imprinted loci (ZHONG et al; Cell Res, 2016, 26: 131), stably sustained maternal imprinting state during cell proliferation. The generation of human haploid ESCs provides a novel tool for genetic analysis in human.
This work entitled “Generation of human haploid embryonic stem cells from parthenogenetic embryos obtained by microsurgical removal of male pronucleus” has been published online in Cell Research on May 17th.
This study was supported by the grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology and National Natural Science Foundation of China.
AUTHOR CONTACT:
LI Jinsong
E-mail: jsli@sibcb.ac.cn
Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, SIBS, CAS
Information for the image
Generation of human haploid embryonic stem cells from parthenogenetic embryos obtained by microsurgical removal of male pronucleus (Image provided by Prof. LI Jinsong’s lab)
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