Human embryos in a dish – modeling early embryonic development with pluripotent stem cells

Abstract

Stem cell-based embryo models present new opportunities to study early embryonic development. In a recent study, Kagawa et al. identified an approach to create human pluripotent stem cell-based blastoids that resemble the human blastocysts. These blastoids efficiently generated analogs of the EPI, TE, PrE lineages with transcriptomes highly similar to those found in vivo. Furthermore, the formation of these lineages followed the same sequence and pace of blastocyst development, and was also dependent on the same pathways required for lineage specification. Finally, the blastoids were capable of attaching to stimulated endometrial cells to mimic the process of implantation. While more comprehensive analysis is needed to confirm its validity and usefulness, this new blastoid system presents the latest development in the attempt to model early human embryogenesis in vitro.

Non-cell-adhesive hydrogel promotes formation of human blastoids from primed human pluripotent stem cells

“…4 ). These capabilities illustrate its potential as a powerful tool for studying human early embryonic developmental processes in vitro ( 16, 41 ).…”

“…Recent studies have reported methods called "blastoids" to generate blastocyst-like structures in mouse models (10)(11)(12). Recently, three groups reported the generation of human blastoids (13)(14)(15)(16). Liu et al (2021) used cells during the reprogramming process from fibroblasts to human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), as these cells contained a variety of cells, including cells with EPI-, TE-, and PE-like transcriptional signatures (13).…”

Calcium and Reactive Oxygen Species Signaling Interplays in Cardiac Physiology and Pathologies

“…Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have the capacity to differentiate into different cell types. They can be derived from the cells within the blastocyst at the beginning of embryonic development, from which the various structures of the fetus originate [159], or they can be derived from human cells that are de-differentiated by expression of Yamanaka factors (Oct3/4, Sox2, Klf4, c-Myc), known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) [160].…”