Sex-Specific Isolation and Propagation of Human Premeiotic Fetal Germ Cells and Germ Cell-Like Cells

The second trimester of human development is marked by asynchronous gonadal development hampering the isolation of homogenous populations of early and late fetal germ cells (FGCs). We evaluated the feasibility of using surface markers TNAP, PDPN, EPCAM and ITGA6 to isolate FGCs as well as human primordial germ cell-like cells (hPGCLCs) derived from embryonic stem cells (hESCs) from both sexes by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). Our results suggest that a combination of TNAP and PDPN was sufficient to separate populations of premeiotic FGCs and hPGCLCs in both sexes. This combination of antibodies also proved efficient in separating ‘mitotic’ from ‘retinoic-acid responsive’ female FGCs. Furthermore, we report that the differentiation efficiency of TNAP+PDPN+ hPGCLCs from hESCs was sex-independent, but the ability to propagate differed considerably between the sexes. In contrast to male, female hPGCLCs retained their characteristics and exhibited robust colony-forming ability when cultured for five days in medium containing LIF, forskolin and FGF2. We conclude that marked sex differences exist in the isolation and propagation of human FGCs and hPGCLCs. Our study provides novel insights relevant for the optimization of in vitro gametogenesis in humans.