Co-Culture of Cryopreserved Healthy Sertoli Cells with Testicular Tissue of Non-Obstructive Azoospermia (NOA) Patients in Culture Media Containing Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH)/Testosterone Has No Advantage in Germ Cell Maturation

What is it about?

Different cell culture conditions and techniques have been used to mature spermatogenic cells to increase the success of in vitro fertilization. Sertoli cells (SCs) are essential in maintaining Citation: Aydos, O.S.; Yukselten, Y.; Ozkan, T.; Ozkavukcu, S.; Tuten Erdogan, M.; Sunguroglu, A.; Aydos, K. Co-Culture of Cryopreserved Healthy Sertoli Cells with Testicular Tissue of Non-Obstructive Azoospermia (NOA) Patients in Culture Media Containing Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH)/Testosterone Has NoAdvantage in Germ Cell Maturation. J. Clin. Med. 2023, 12, 1073. https://doi.org/10.3390/ jcm12031073 Academic Editor: Willem Ombelet Received: 13 December 2022 Revised: 11 January 2023 Accepted: 26 January 2023 Published: 30 January 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). spermatogenesis and FSH stimulation exerts its effect through direct or indirect actions on SCs. The effectiveness of FSH and testosterone added to the co-culture has been demonstrated in other studies to provide microenvironment conditions of the testicular niche and to contribute to the maturation and meiotic progression of spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs). In the present study, we investigated whether co-culture of healthy SCs with the patient’s testicular tissue in the medium supplemented with FSH/testosterone provides an advantage in the differentiation and maturation of germ cells in NOA cases.

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Why is it important?

Our results suggest that the presence of the patient’s own SCs for maturation of germ cells in the culture medium supplemented with FSH and testosterone is sufficient. In addition, the freezing–thawing process would not impair the viability and proliferation of SCs.