Scientists Use Stem Cells To Develop Mouse Embryo With Brain And Beating Heart

Scientists from the University of Cambridge have created model embryos from mouse stem cells that form a brain, a beating heart, and the foundations of all the other organs of the body. It represents a new avenue for recreating the first stages of life, SciTechDaily reported.

Photo Insert: Side-by-side images of natural and synthetic embryos to demonstrate comparable brain and heart formation.

The team, led by Prof. Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, developed the embryo model without eggs or sperm. Instead, they used stem cells – the body’s master cells, which can develop into almost any cell type in the body.

“It’s just unbelievable that we’ve got this far. This has been the dream of our community for years, and major focus of our work for a decade and finally we’ve done it,” Goetz said.

By guiding the three types of stem cells found in early mammalian development to the point where they start interacting, the researchers mimicked natural processes in the lab.

The scientists were able to get the stem cells to ‘talk’ to each other by inducing the expression of a particular set of genes and establishing a unique environment for their interactions.

The stem cells self-organized into structures that progressed through the successive developmental stages until they had beating hearts and the foundations of the brain They also had the yolk sac where the embryo develops and gets nutrients from in its first weeks.

Unlike other synthetic embryos, the Cambridge-developed models reached the point where the entire brain, including the anterior portion, began to develop. This is a further point in development than has been achieved in any other stem cell-derived model.

According to the team, their results could help researchers understand why some embryos fail while others go on to develop into a healthy pregnancy. In addition, the results could be used to guide the repair and development of synthetic human organs for transplantation.

The study, which is the result of more than a decade of research that progressively led to more and more complex embryo-like structures, was reported on August 25, 2022, in the journal Nature.

Once replicated for human benefit, the research could help develop organs for harvesting and transplanting, which will be good for people seeking liver, kidney, and heart transplants.

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