Modeling mammalian meiosis with pluripotent stem cells: progress and challenges

Meiosis is a specialized cell division producing haploid gametes from diploid germ cells and is vital to sexual reproduction in mammals. This process entails carefully regulated molecular events including double-strand break repair, remodeling of the chromatin and the segregation of the chromosomes. There have been significant advances in understanding the core mechanisms through genetics and imaging techniques. Nevertheless, studying human meiosis is still difficult owing to limited access to tissue and interspecies differences in models using animals. Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), namely embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells, have turned out to be new in vitro models to model early germ cell development and meiotic progress in recent times. This article outlines the molecular regulation of meiosis in mammals and discusses the way in which the use of PSC-based models has begun to supplement classical methodologies in the study of meiosis.