Nature: Artificial embryos generate complete brains and hearts

Introduction: The secret to mammalian life is simple: take an egg, add sperm, and wait

Researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Caltech have created model mouse embryos from stem cells -- the body's master cells that can develop into almost any cell type in the body -- with a beating heart, a brain, and everything in a mouse.

The paper, titled "Synthetic embryos complete gastrulation to neurulation and organogenesis," was published Aug.

summary

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We assembled stem cell-derived embryos from mouse ESCs, TSCs and iXEN cells in vitro and the results reproduced their entire native development of mouse embryos in utero to day 8.

mouse model

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Embryonic models are developed without eggs or sperm

Stem cells self-organize into structures that go through successive stages of development until a synthetic embryo has the foundation of a beating heart and brain, as well as the embryo's developing yolk sac, and receives nourishment during the first few weeks

"Our mouse embryonic model develops not only a brain, but a beating heart, all the building blocks that make up the body," she explained

research Development

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For a human embryo to develop successfully, there needs to be a "dialogue" between the tissue that will become the embryo and the tissue that connects the embryo to the mother

To guide the development of their synthetic embryos, the researchers brought together cultured stem cells representing each of the three tissues and allowed them to develop in proportions and environments that were conducive to their growth and communication with each other, leading to their eventual self Assembled into embryos

"This period of human life is so mysterious, so being able to see how it happens in a petri dish, to be able to access these individual stem cells, to understand why so many pregnancies fail and how we can prevent that from happening, is very special," Zernicka-Goetz said

Significance

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While the current study was performed in a mouse model, the researchers are developing a similar model of human embryonic development to understand the mechanisms behind key processes that would otherwise not be possible to study in real embryos

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