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Stem Cell Therapies for Male Infertility: Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going?

  • Chapter
Biennial Review of Infertility

Abstract

Chemotherapy and radiation treatments for cancer and other conditions can cause permanent infertility. Adult men have the option to cryopreserve a semen sample with sperm prior to treatment and use their sample in the future to have biological children using the established assisted reproductive technologies, in vitro fertilization (IVF) with intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). This option is not available to prepubertal boys who are not yet producing mature sperm. However, these boys do have spermatogonial stem cells in their testes that are poised to initiate sperm production at puberty. Centers in the United States and abroad are actively cryopreserving testicular tissue for prepubertal cancer patients, bone marrow transplant patients, and others in anticipation that stem cell therapies will be available for them in the future. This chapter reviews progress in the development of spermatogonial stem cell transplantation, testicular tissue grafting and xenografting, testicular tissue organ culture, de novo testicular morphogenesis, and pluripotent stem cell-derived gametogenesis. The prepubertal cancer patient is used throughout this chapter as a model for discussion, which intended to stimulate thinking about other applications of stem cell technologies for preserving and treating male infertility.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Scaife Foundation, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Magee-Womens Research Institute and Foundation, and the University of Pittsburgh Departments of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and Urology who have generously provided funds to support the Fertility Preservation Program in Pittsburgh. It is in this context that we have had the opportunity to meet the infertile patients that fuel our passion for fertility research. The Orwig Lab is supported by the Magee-Womens Research Institute and Foundation, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grants HD075795 and HD076412, the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation, and gift funds from Montana State University, Sylvia Bernassoli, and Julie and Michael McMullen.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Magee-Womens Research Institute, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Hanna Valli PhD & Kathrin Gassei PhD

  2. Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Magee-Womens Research Institute, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 204 Craft Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Kyle E. Orwig PhD

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  1. Hanna Valli PhD
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Correspondence to Kyle E. Orwig PhD .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Professor, Departments of Surgery (Urology), Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Human Genetics, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

    Douglas T. Carrell

  2. James J. Colt Professor of Urology, Chairman, Department of Urology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York, New York, USA

    Peter N. Schlegel

  3. Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Catherine Racowsky

  4. Scientific Director, Reproductive Medicine Unit, S.I.S.M.E.R. s.r.l., Day Surgery Clinic della Riproduzione (SISMeR), Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Luca Gianaroli

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Valli, H., Gassei, K., Orwig, K.E. (2015). Stem Cell Therapies for Male Infertility: Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going?. In: Carrell, D., Schlegel, P., Racowsky, C., Gianaroli, L. (eds) Biennial Review of Infertility. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17849-3_3

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