At the most fundamental level, fertility requires faithful generation of oocytes and sperm from germ cells. Knowledge of how germ cells develop is thus critical for understanding infertility, optimizing assisted reproduction, and identifying contraceptive targets. However, comprehensive understanding of the molecular components governing germ cell development is lacking.
I will discuss our endeavors to break this knowledge gap using the Caenorhabditis elegans model to functionally characterize the germline regulatory landscape. As part of these studies, we discovered that a somatic transmembrane proteoglycan (Syndecan-1) controls germ cell development by communicating extracellular cues to the germline. This highlights Syndecan-1 as a critical soma-germline communication nexus that coordinates extracellular signals to control germ cell fate.