It may be possible one day to create an "unlimited" supply of human eggs to help fertility treatment, U.S. doctors.
Researchers have shown that stem cells can be found in adult women who spontaneously produce new eggs in the laboratory.
Other experiments in mice showed these eggs can be fertilized, according to a study published in the journal Nature Medicine.
A British expert said the study re-wrote the rule book with "exciting possibilities" for improving fertility.
The long-established theory is that women are born with all the eggs she will ever have. Lead researcher Dr. Jonathan Tilly of Massachusetts General Hospital, said this study, a follow up one of the mice in 2004, refutes that.
His team has reported to identify and isolate stem cells that will produce eggs in the ovaries of women of reproductive age. Is performed by searching for a protein, DDX4, which was unique to the surface of the stem cells. This allowed the researchers to catch the correct cells.
When grown in the laboratory, the cells 'spontaneous generation' immature eggs, or oocytes, which looked and acted like the eggs in the body.
The cells were "matured" when surrounded by living tissue from human ovary, which had been grafted into mice.
There are strong legal and ethical constraints on research on human eggs. Repeated the same experiments using stem cells taken from mice showed that the eggs can be fertilized with sperm and embryos produced.
BBC
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