Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Stem cells used to model a two-week-old human embryo

Researchers have used stem cells to create models that resemble human embryos at two weeks old, but bypass the earliest developmental stages — paving the way for studies that are not possible in human embryos.
  1. Naomi Moris

    1. Naomi Moris is in The Francis Crick Institute, 1 Midland Way, London NW1 1AT, UK.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Ask a person on the street what a 13-day-old human embryo looks like, and you might hear a broad range of answers. Some might imagine a formless clump of cells, others a fetus-in-miniature with recognizable features such as limbs, eyes or a heart. In truth, the architecture of the two-week-old embryo is more like a series of nested cellular bubbles, or fluid-filled cavities, that support the development of a relatively simple cell layer that will eventually give rise to a fetus. Similar structures have been made entirely from stem cells, as reported in Nature by Oldak et al.1, by Pedroza et al.2 and Weatherbee et al.3.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 622, 469-470 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03150-y

References

  1. Oldak, B. et al. Nature 622, 562–573 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Pedroza, M. et al. Nature 622, 574–583 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Weatherbee, B. A. T. et al. Nature 622, 584–593 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Pera, M. F. Development 144, 1923–1925 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Nagy, A. et al. Development 110, 815–821 (1990).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Nagy, A., Rossant, J., Nagy, R., Abramow-Newerly, W. & Roder, J. C. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 90, 8424–8428 (1993).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Bayerl, J. et al. Cell Stem Cell 28, 1549–1565 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Hislop, J. et al. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.06.15.545118 (2023).

  9. Ai, Z. et al. Cell Res. 33, 661–678 (2023).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Yuan, G. et al. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.06.28.546720 (2023).

  11. Lovell-Badge, R. et al. Stem Cell Rep. 16, 1398–1408 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Amadei, G. et al. Nature 610, 143–153 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Tarazi, S. et al. Cell 185, 3290–3306 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Rivron, N. et al. Nature 564, 183–185 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Hyun, I., Munsie, M., Pera, M. F., Rivron, N. C. & Rossant, J. Stem Cell Rep. 14, 169–174 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Clark, A. T. et al. Stem Cell Rep. 16, 1416–1424 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Foreman, A. L. et al. Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 82, 102103 (2023).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Rivron, N. C., Martinez Arias, A., Pera, M. F., Moris, N. & M’hamdi, H. I. Cell 186, 3548–3557 (2023).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Competing Interests

N.M. is an inventor on two patents owned by the University of Cambridge, PCT/GB2019/052668 & PCT/GB2019/052670, covering gastruloid models.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links