To recreate the early stages of mammalian life, researchers at the University of Cambridge, England, have created a model of the mouse embryo that forms the brain, beating heart and building blocks of all other organs in the body. The team, led by Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, in a new way developed synthetic embryos without eggs or sperm. Instead, it uses stem cells, the basic particles of the body that can develop into almost any type of cell.

The researchers mimicked natural processes in the laboratory by guiding the interactions of three types of stem cells found in early mammalian development, through genetic control. With this they were able to get them through successive stages of embryonic growth until they produced a heartbeat and brain foundation, that is, to a level of progress that had never been achieved by any other model derived from this class of cells. In this way, they develop the yolk sac, where the embryo grows and is nourished in the first weeks.

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“Our mouse embryo model develops not only the brain, but also the beating heart, all the components that make up the body,” Zernicka-Goetz said in a university statement. “It’s amazing that we got this far. This has been the dream of our community for many years, and the main focus of our work for a decade and we finally achieved it,” he added.

The importance of results

The team says that these results will allow researchers to understand why some embryos fail, while others end up in healthy pregnancies. Furthermore, the findings could be used to guide the repair and fabrication of artificial organs for transplantation, said RT.

In the same way, the researchers believe that the synthetic model of stem cells is important and novel because it allows to access, to study, the structure of the tiny embryo at a stage where it is normally hidden due to implantation in the mother’s womb. womb. This allows genes to be manipulated to understand their developmental role in experimental models.

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

Another element that the authors consider significant is that this synthetic embryonic development opens up new possibilities for studying neurodevelopmental mechanisms in experimental models.

British law now allows human embryos to be studied in the laboratory for up to day 14 of their development, allowing researchers to build similar human models with the aim of understanding the mechanisms behind important processes that are impossible to analyze in real embryos. .

This allows researchers to develop human-like models to understand the mechanisms behind important processes that are impossible to study in real embryos.

Early embryonic process

For a human embryo to grow successfully, there must be communication between its tissues and the network that will connect it to the mother. In the first week after fertilization, three types of stem cells develop.

The first will be body tissue and the other two, extra-embryonic, will support fetal development. One will be the placenta, which connects the embryo to the mother and provides her with oxygen and nutrients; while others will form the yolk sac, where it grows and is fed during early development.