Multicellular eukaryotes are made of two fundamental cell types. Germ cells produce gametes and are the only cells that can undergo meiosis as well as mitosis. These cells are sometimes said to be immortal because they are the link between generations. Somatic cells are all the other cells that form the building blocks of the body and they only divide by mitosis. The lineage of germ cells is called germ line. Germ cell specification begins during cleavage in many animals or in the epiblast during gastrulation in birds and mammals. After transport, involving passive movements and active migration, germ cells arrive at the developing gonads. In humans, sexual differentiation starts approximately 6 weeks after conception. The end-products of the germ cell cycle are the egg or sperm.

 

Under special conditions in vitro germ cells can acquire properties similar to those of embryonic stem cells (ES). The underlying mechanism of that change is still unknown. These changed cells are then called embryonic germ cells (EG). Both EG and ES are pluripotent in vitro, but only ES has proven pluripotency in vivo. Recent studies have demonstrated that it is possible to give rise to primordial germ cells from ES.

There are two mechanisms to establish the germ cell lineage in the embryo. The first way is called preformistic and involves that the cells destined to become germ cells inherit the specific germ cell determinants present in the germ plasm (specific area of the cytoplasm) of the egg (ovum). The unfertilized egg of most animals is asymmetrical: different regions of the cytoplasm contain different amounts of mRNA and proteins.

 

The second way is found in mammals, where germ cells are not specified by such determinants but by signals controlled by zygotic genes. In mammals, a few cells of the early embryo are induced by signals of neighboring cells to become primordial germ cells. Mammalian eggs are somewhat symmetrical and after the first divisions of the fertilized egg, the produced cells are all totipotent. This means that they can differentiate in any cell type in the body and thus germ cells. Specification of primordial germ cells in the laboratory mouse is initiated by high levels of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling, which activates expression of the transcription factors Blimp-1/Prdm1 and Prdm14. It is speculated that induction was the ancestral mechanism, and that the preformistic, or inheritance, mechanism of germ cell establishment arose from convergent evolution.[7] There are several key differences between these two mechanisms that may provide reasoning for the evolution of germ plasm inheritance. One difference is that typically inheritance occurs almost immediately during development (around the blastoderm stage) while induction typically does not occur until gastrulation. As germ cells are quiescent and therefore not dividing, they are not susceptible to mutation.Since the germ cell lineage is not established right away by induction, there is a higher chance for mutation to occur before the cells are specified. Mutation rate data is available that indicates a higher rate of germ line mutations in mice and humans, species which undergo induction, than in C. elegans and Drosophila melanogaster, species which undergo inheritance.

 

Last Updated on: Jul 05, 2024