Abstract
Arising from: S. Conrad et al. Nature 456, 344–349 (2008)10.1038/nature07404; Conrad et al. reply
Conrad et al. have generated human adult germline stem cells (haGSCs) from human testicular tissue, which they claim have similar pluripotent properties to human embryonic stem cells (hESCs)1. Here we investigate the pluripotency of haGSCs by using global gene-expression analysis based on their gene array data1 and comparing the expression of pluripotency marker genes in haGSCs and hESCs, and in haGSCs and human fibroblast samples derived from different laboratories, including our own. We find that haGSCs and fibroblasts have a similar gene-expression profile, but that haGSCs and hESCs do not. The pluripotency of Conrad and colleagues’ haGSCs is therefore called into question.
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References
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Ko, K., Araúzo-Bravo, M., Tapia, N. et al. Human adult germline stem cells in question. Nature 465, E1 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09089
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09089
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Peter Jack
The author's note is already a troubling sign for Conrad et al's original report. Unless others can reproduce the original report, including Conrad's group itself, and openly provide their cells as evidence for their claims to be verified by independent laboratories, a retraction of the original work might be in order