In recent years, the research on stem cells has been more and more in-depth, and many achievements have been made in application. However, due to the small number of spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) and deficiency of efficient markers, it is difficult to obtain very pure SSCs, which results in the research on them being hindered. In fact, many methods have been developed to isolate and purify SSCs, but these methods have their shortcomings. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), as a method to enrich SSCs with the help of specific surface markers, has the characteristics of high efficiency and accuracy in enrichment of SSCs, thus it is widely accepted as an effective method for purification of SSCs. This review summarizes the recent studies on the application of FACS in SSCs, and introduces some commonly used markers of effective SSCs sorting, aiming to further optimize the FACS sorting method for SSCs, so as to promote the research of germline stem cells and provide new ideas for the research of reproductive biology.
Keywords: Fluorescence-activated cell sorting; Purification; Spermatogonial stem cells; Surface markers.