BACKGROUND The cells of mammalian female reproductive tract have been widely used for in vitro fertilization (IVF). This study was designed to study the effects of oviductal epithelial cells (OECs) and their conditioned medium during IVF on subsequent embryonic development and the relative abundance of zygote arrest 1 (Zar1) transcript in ovine zygotes. METHODS The in vitro matured ovine oocy...

The first differentiation event of the mammalian embryo is thought to occur during blastulation and results in two populations of cells, the inner cell mass (ICM) and the trophectoderm. Most embryonic stem (ES) cell lines have been derived from the ICM or a further subset of ICM cells known as the epiblast. There appears to be a limited period of embryonic development during which pluripotent E...

OBJECTIVE cAMP and mature promoting factor (MPF) play critical roles during the maturation of mammalian oocytes. The aim of this study was to produce the offspring from denuded oocytes (DOs) in mice by regulating cAMP and MPF. METHODS In this study, we used DOs at the germinal vesicle (GV) stage in mice and regulated levels of cAMP and MPF in DOs by adding Forskolin and PD166285 during in vit...

Mouse pre-implantation development gives rise to the blastocyst, which is made up of at least three distinct cell types: the trophectoderm (TE) that surrounds a cavity, and an inner cell mass (ICM) comprising the primitive endoderm (PE) and epiblast (EPI). However, the underlying mechanisms involved in patterning the cleavage-stage embryo are still unresolved. By analyzing the distribution of t...

The extra-embryonic endoderm lineage plays a major role in the nutritive support of the embryo and is required for several inductive events, such as anterior patterning and blood island formation. Blastocyst-derived embryonic stem (ES) and trophoblast stem (TS) cell lines provide good models with which to study the development of the epiblast and trophoblast lineages, respectively. We describe ...

Mammalian development begins with the segregation of embryonic and extra-embryonic lineages in the blastocyst. Recent studies revealed cell-to-cell gene expression heterogeneity and dynamic cell rearrangements during mouse blastocyst formation. Thus, mechanistic understanding of lineage specification requires quantitative description of gene expression dynamics at a single-cell resolution in li...

The inner cell mass (ICM) of the implanting mammalian blastocyst comprises two lineages: the pluripotent epiblast (EPI) and primitive endoderm (PrE). We have identified platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRα) as an early marker of the PrE lineage and its derivatives in both mouse embryos and ex vivo paradigms of extra-embryonic endoderm (ExEn). By combining live imaging of embryo...

Mammalian embryos at the blastocyst stage have three major lineages, which in culture can give rise to embryonic stem (ES) cells from the inner cell mass or epiblast, trophoblast stem cells from the trophectoderm, and primitive endoderm stem cells. None of these stem cells is totipotent, because they show gene expression profiles characteristic of their sources and usually contribute only to th...

Cell differentiation during pre-implantation mammalian development involves the formation of two extra-embryonic lineages: trophoblast and primitive endoderm (PrE). A subset of cells within the inner cell mass (ICM) of the blastocyst does not respond to differentiation signals and forms the pluripotent epiblast, which gives rise to all of the tissues in the adult body. How this group of cells i...

background: integrins are heterodimeric glycoprotein receptors that regulate the interaction of cells with extracellular matrix and may have a critical role in implantation. the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of ovulation induction on the expression of α4, αv, β1, and β3 integrins in mouse blastocyst at the time of implantation. methods: the ovarian stimulated and non-stimulate...