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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

One stem cell morphs into a mouse embryo’s forerunner

A sphere of cells that blossoms from only one stem cell can implant in a mouse uterus and form multiple tissues.
A blastoid generated from a single extended pluripotent stem (EPS) cell.

A laboratory-grown structure that mimics the precursor to a mammalian embryo has cells (green) for forming the placenta and cells (red) for forming the embryo itself. Credit: Ronghui Li, Cuiqing Zhong, Yang Yu/Salk Institute

A single stem cell has been coaxed into forming a ball of cells that can implant in a mouse’s uterus, where it then generates all three founding tissues needed to build a foetus.

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Nature 574, 456 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03140-z

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