For the first time, scientists have created mouse embryos in the lab and watched them grow outside the womb. Stem cells and a spinning device were used by the researchers.
The experiment is a "game-changer" according to a developmental Biologist at Pompeu Fabra University who was not involved in the research.
He said that this is an important landmark in our understanding of embryo building.
The breakthrough experiment was described in a report in the journal Cell. The embryo floats in small beakers of solution and the beakers are locked into a cylinder that keeps them moving. The movement is similar to how blood and vitamins are transported to the uterus. According to a statement from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, the device mimics the atmospheric pressure of a mouse uterus.
The team used a bioreactor to grow natural mouse embryos, which reached day 11 of development in the device. "That really showed that the embryo can grow outside of the uterus, so it's not really patterning or sending signals to the embryo so much as providing nutrition," Jacob said.
A human embryo made in the lab.
The researchers wanted to grow lab-made embryos in the mechanical womb after their success with natural ones.
They applied a chemical treatment to mouse stem cells that reset them into a naive state from which they could transform into any type of cell. In a fraction of the naive cells, the team applied additional treatments to switch on genes that are needed to make the placenta and the yolk sac. The two groups of cells were given a push to give rise to extraembryonic tissues.
Three groups of stem cells were put into the artificial womb. The three flavors of cells came together to form clumps, but only 50 out of 10,000 clumps developed into embryo-like structures and only a few survived in the bioreactor.
The initial spherical embryo stretched out and became cylindrical as would be expected of a natural embryo. The beginnings of the central nervous system were visible by day 6. Blood stem cells were pushed through newly formed vessels by the embryo's small hearts.
The shape of internal structures and genes in the synthetic embryo were slightly different from those in the natural mouse embryo.
The researchers plan to study the chemical signals that push embryonic cells to become different types of tissue.
The next challenge is to understand how stem cells find their way to their assigned spots in an embryo. Because our system is transparent, it can be used to model birth and implantation defects of human embryos.
He said that the artificial womb could one day be used as an incubator for cells, tissues and organs for transplant procedures.
Paul Tesar, a developmental biologist at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine who was not involved in the study, said that it was an important step to study early development. It's possible to create an embryo from scratch and possibly a living organisms. It has been a big change for the field.
Heavy ethical considerations come with research like this.
The mouse is a starting point for thinking about how one wants to approach this in humans. I don't think it's necessary to be alarmed or raise a panic, but I think it's important to have a discussion about how far we want to go.
It was originally published on Live Science
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