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Premeiotic Origin of Teratomas: Is Meiosis Required for Differentiation into Mature Tissues?
Zhengping Zhuang, Mojgan Devouassoux-Shisheboran, Irina A. Lubensky, Fattaneh Tavassoli and Alexander O. Vortmeyer
volume 4 | issue 11
November 2005Pages: 1683 - 1687
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By virtue of meiotic cell division, primordial germ cells with heterozygous alleles develop into postmeiotic germ cells with homozygous alleles. Female and male germ cells may develop tumors - so-called teratomas - with a unique co-existence of a variety of histological elements from all three embryonic germ layers. In particular, mature teratomas consist exclusively of developmentally mature tissues whereas immature teratomas contain variable amounts of mature and immature tissues. In this study, we report genetic analysis of individual tissue components from mature and immature teratomas. The majority of mature teratomas showed consistent and concordant homozygous alleles in all selectively procured tissue components. In a small subset of mature teratomas, we observed discordant homozygous alleles. In contrast, immature teratomatous tissue revealed a heterozygous genotype. Remarkably, mature tissue components within immature teratoma revealed homozygosity. The findings suggest that immature teratomas and at least a subset of mature teratomas may originate from premeiotic cells, and implicate that meiosis may be required for differentiation into mature tissues.
We now provide open access to journal articles published online for one year or more. This article may be downloaded at the following link:
Download PDF If the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.