The Relationship between POU5F1 Transcription Factor Expression and Age Increasing as an Epigenetic Factor

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the expression level of the important transcription factor POU5F1 in spermatogonial stem cells with age and to present the expression patterns of this factor in the mouse spermatogenic tube.

In the present study, spermatogonial stem cells were isolated after extracting the testicles of two-week-old and sixteen-week-old adult mice purchased from the Pasteur Institute of Iran. The cells were cultured in a StemPro-34 medium containing specific growth factors. Also, after fixing and preparing the tissue, they were incubated with primary and secondary antibodies, and an immunohistochemical examination was done with a confocal microscope. Then, real-time PCR analysis was used to quantitatively investigate the expression of the POU5F1 transcription factor.

While in the immunohistochemical analysis, high expression of the POU5F1 transcription factor was observed in the infant's testis, the number of POU5F1 positive cells in the seminiferous tubules of the adult testis was higher than that of the infant. Also, real-time PCR analysis showed that the level of POU5F1 gene expression in newborn SSCs was significantly (P < 0.05) higher than 16-week-old SSCs.

The results can reveal the foundation of new dimensions in the relationship between epigenetic factors and the differentiation power of stem cells, which should be considered in research on the differentiation of spermatogonial stem cells into sperm cells.