Live imaging of embryos at different stages. Chromosomes are labeled in magenta. 4-cell sister blastomeres are shown, along with 3D-reconstructed images of 2-to-4-cell and 4-to-8-cell divisions.

At the end of the 4-cell stage, embryos divide to the 8-cell stage, forming many different shapes and high variability between embryos. Then, cells increase their surface tension which brings cells ...

Embryo development starts when a single egg cell is fertilized and starts dividing continuously. Initially a chaotic cluster, it gradually evolves into a highly organized structure. Scientists have ...

A new discovery by researchers at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics (BDR) in Japan upends decades of assumptions regarding DNA replication. Led by Ichiro Hiratani and colleagues, the ...

Conditional genetics and single-embryo RNA-seq show that SETDB1 extinguishes the transient, retroelement-driven transcriptional programs of the totipotent two-cell state to facilitate the exit from ...

A lot happens in the first month of human embryo development as a single cell morphs into multitudes. Yet despite its significance, this period is basically a “black box” to researchers, says stem ...

A research team showed that, contrary to current models, one early embryonic cell dominates lineages that will become the fetus. “They are not identical,” said Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a ...