Center for Reproductive Medicine, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Biol Reprod. 2013 May 31;88(5):131. doi: 10.1095/biolreprod.113.108639. Print 2013 May.
A computer program has been developed that simulates the behavior of spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) and their offspring inside and outside of the stem cell niche. Various parameters derived from previous morphological and cell kinetic studies have been used to set up an Excel-based computer program that simulates the proliferative activity of SSCs during the seminiferous epithelial cycle. SSCs and their offspring are depicted in a virtual piece of seminiferous tubule in which the daughter cells of self-renewing divisions of SSCs migrate away from each other, while after SSC differentiation a pair of cells is formed. Those SSC daughter cells that migrate out of the niche will very likely differentiate at their next division. Putting in physiologically acceptable parameters, the program renders numbers of spermatogonial cell types similar to those previously counted in whole mounts of seminiferous tubules. In this model, SSC numbers and numbers of differentiating cells remain constant for more than 50 virtual epithelial cycles, i.e., more than 1 yr of a mouse life and 2 yr of that of a Chinese hamster. The program can simulate various recent cell kinetic experiments and confirms, or offers alternative explanations for, the results obtained, showing its usefulness in spermatogenesis research.
已经开发出一种计算机程序，可以模拟精原干细胞（SSC）及其在干细胞龛内和龛外的后代的行为。先前的形态学和细胞动力学研究中得出的各种参数已被用于建立一个基于 Excel 的计算机程序，该程序模拟了 SSCs 在生精上皮周期中的增殖活性。SSC 及其后代被描绘在一个虚拟的生精小管片段中，其中 SSCs 的自我更新分裂的子细胞彼此迁移，而在 SSC 分化后形成一对细胞。从龛中迁移出来的那些 SSC 子细胞很可能在下一次分裂时分化。输入生理上可接受的参数后，该程序生成的精原细胞类型数量与以前在整个生精小管切片中计数的数量相似。在这个模型中，SSC 数量和分化细胞数量在超过 50 个虚拟上皮周期内保持不变，即超过 1 年的小鼠寿命和 2 年的中国仓鼠寿命。该程序可以模拟各种最近的细胞动力学实验，并确认或提供对获得的结果的替代解释，显示了它在精子发生研究中的有用性。
