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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Dissection and Staining of Drosophila Larval Ovaries
Published on: May 13, 2011
Homeostatic regulation of germinal stem cell proliferation by the GDNF/FSH pathway
Yuko Tadokoro1, Kentaro Yomogida, Hiroshi Ohta
1Department of Science for Laboratory Animal Experimentation, Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University, Yamadaoka 3-1, Suita 565-0871, Japan.
Abstract:
Stem cell regulatory mechanisms are difficult to study because self-renewal and production of differentiated progeny, which are both strictly controlled, occur simultaneously in these cells. To focus on the self-renewal mechanism alone, we investigated the behavior of germinal stem cells (GSCs) in progeny-deficient testes with defective GSC differentiation. In these testes, we found that the proliferation of undifferentiated spermatogonia, some of which are GSCs, was accelerated by high concentrations of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF). Furthermore, we found that follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) stimulation via homeostatic control was one of the major regulators of GDNF concentration. These results suggest that in mammalian testes, GSC proliferation and population size are regulated homeostatically by the GDNF/FSH pathway.
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