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The first single-cell analysis of the human ovarian cortex revealed six main types of cells, but none of the oogonial stem cells that other researchers say they have isolated, according to a study published earlier this week (March 2) in Nature Communications. These findings are backed by the most advanced technologies, the authors say, and could put to rest a heated debate about the properties of the adult ovary that has raged for more than a decade.
The results of the experiment don’t “leave a lot of space for different interpretations,” says Susana Chuva de Sousa Lopes, a developmental biologist at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands who served on the PhD dissertation committee of coauthor Sarita Panula but was not involved in the research. It seems, she says, that cells previously identified as ovarian stem cells are in fact perivascular cells, which support blood vessel ...
