Childhood cancer and hematological disorders negatively affect spermatogonial quantity at diagnosis: a retrospective study of a male fertility preservation cohort

For young boys with cancer or a non-malignant hematological disorder, conditioning therapy, abdominal/pelvic radiotherapy, and certain chemotherapies form a major risk for germ cell loss. Contradictory studies have investigated the direct effects of such diseases on the development of the prepubertal male gonad before mainline treatment. For health professionals to counsel pediatric patients in the …

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Temperature sensitivity of DNA double-strand break repair underpins heat-induced meiotic failure in mouse spermatogenesis

Kodai Hirano, Yuta Nonami, Yoshiaki Nakamura, Toshiyuki Sato, Takuya Sato, Keiichiro Ishiguro, Takehiko Ogawa, *Shosei Yoshida Background Spermatogenesis in mammals is a temperature-sensitive developmental process that occurs at a few degrees below the core body temperature of 38 °C. Elevated testis temperatures disrupt spermatogenesis at various phases, leading to male infertility. Artificial cryptorchidism, which involves surgically …

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Tête-à-tête with Jan-Bernd Stukenborg

Get to know our first invited speaker to the upcoming 15th NYRA Meeting in Caux (June 17th-18th) through this ‘tête-à-tête’. Dr Stukenborg obtained his PhD at the Centre of Reproductive Medicine and Andrology (CeRA) in Münster, Germany, after which he joined the Karolinska Institutet for as a post-doctoral researcher. Currently Dr Stukenborg is a senior …

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Global profiling of the proteomic changes associated with the post-testicular maturation of mouse spermatozoa

During the differentiation phase at the spermiogenesis (the last phase of the spermatogenesis), haploid round spermatids undergo an extreme morphological remodelling of nuclear and cytoplasmic structures. Nonetheless, while testicular sperm are morphologically specialized cells, they are not functional and lack both the ability to swim and fertilize. Hence, sperm maturation in the epididymis is therefore …

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Molecular evolutionary investigation of spermatogenesis

Human semen quality is remarkably poor, with a reduced efficiency of spermatogenesis. Studies revealed that latter complex process has undergone rapid evolutionary changes. Male infertility is increasing which leads to a concomitant higher demand of assisted reproductive technologies. As other primates have not experienced the same decreasing fertility, a multicenter study sought to uncover the …

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NYRA Session at ECA 2022

The 12th European Congress of Andrology took place from October 19th to October 21st in Barcelona, Spain, and once again NYRA  hosted a session with talks from selected younger researchers. Under the expert moderation of Alberto and Daniel from the NYRA board, Yoni Baert (Belgium) introduced us to testicular organoids and their potential in i.e., …

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Summary of the 14th NYRA meeting

The 14th international NYRA meeting took place from September 20th to September 21st, 2022, in Norwich, United Kingdom. 31 participants from UK, Croatia, Spain, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, France, Poland, and Belgium joined this meeting at the University of East Anglia (UEA), which is a part of the Norwich Research Park, one of Europe’s biggest communities of researchers in …

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Single-cell roadmap of human gonadal development

After primordial germ cells (PGCs) have colonized the gonadal ridge at roughly 3–5 weeks post conception (WPC), two successive development stages are observed during male gonadogenesis: sex determination of the bipotential gonads and testis differentiation. At 6 WPC, the SRY gene becomes expressed in the bipotent supporting cells in the gonadal coelomic epithelium, ventral to …

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Tête-à-tête with Simone Immler

To wrap up the ‘tête-à-tête’ series on speakers from the 14th NYRA Meeting in Norwich, we here present the tête-à-tête with Simone Immler. Simone Immler is a Professor of Genetics and Reproduction at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia. Prof. Immler earned her MSc from the University of Basel, Switzerland, …

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