Reproduction Abstracts

Germ stem cells in the testis reside in a unique microenvironment, known as the ‘niche’. In humans testicular germ cell cancer (TGCC) is thought to arise when the ‘niche’ fails to induce germ cell maturation. Gonocytes that fail to differentiate into spermatogonia during fetal life form pre-neoplastic carcinoma in-situ (CIS) cells. CIS cells then transform into an invasive tumour in adulthood. Despite the lack of an animal model of TGCC it may be p...

Introduction: Testicular germ cell cancer (TGCC) has been increasing in incidence over recent decades. We have previously shown that the precursor lesion for TGCC, carcinoma in situ (CIS) cells, have different phenotypes which determine proliferation rate. CIS which express only OCT4, a well-established marker for CIS, proliferate more that those expressing OCT4 and MAGE-A4 (differentiated germ cells marker). Gankyrin is an oncogene that interacts with MAGE-A4 and sup...