The Primary Cultivation of Oogonial Stem Cells from Black Rockfish (Sebastes schlegelii): Morphology and...

Black rockfish (Sebastes schlegelii) is a marine ovoviviparous teleost that exhibits significant sexual dimorphism, with females growing faster and reaching larger sizes than males. Establishing stable oogonial stem cells (OSCs) is critical for understanding germline stem cell dynamics and facilitating all-female breeding. In this study, we successfully isolated and cultured OSCs from S. schlegelii for 12 passages. These cells exhibited alkaline phosphatase activity, expressed germline marker genes (ddx4, cdh1, klf4), and maintained a diploid karyotype (2n = 48). Transcriptomic comparisons between early (P3) and late (P12) passages revealed significant metabolic dysfunction and cell cycle arrest in the late-passage cells. Specifically, the down-regulation of glutathione-related and glycolysis-related genes (gstm3, gstt1, mgst3, gsta1, gsta4, gsto1, gapdh) and key mitotic regulators (cdk1, chk1, cdk4, e2f3, ccne2, ccnb1) suggested that metabolic imbalance contributes to oxidative stress, resulting in cell cycle inhibition and eventual senescence. This study provides a marine fish model for investigating metabolism-cell cycle interactions in germline stem cells and lays the foundation for future applications in germ cell transplantation and all-female breeding.