New publication on “symmetry breaking in ensembles of ES cells”

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figure-01
The left picture is a group of ES cells bearing a reporter for Wnt signalling (red) in adherent culture, the middle one is the same cells in an elongating ‘organoid” which we call a ‘gastruloid” -notice the localize expression of the reporter-; finally the picture on the right is an embryo bearing the Wnt reporter at a stage we reckon mimics that of the aggregates in the middle. Picture on the right courtesy of Christoph Budjan.

New publication on “symmetry breaking in ensembles of ES cells”

Progress on our attempts to understand the connection between genes, signals, cells and embryos have just been published in Development. In a first paper we describe a new experimental system in which we coax mouse Embryonic Stem cells to make structures with an anterior posterior axis and a germ layer organization that resembles that of an embryo (http://dev.biologists.org/content/141/22/4231.full). In a second paper we use this experimental system to gain some insights into the emergence of the spinal cord (http://dev.biologists.org/content/141/22/4243.full).

You can see a movie and some thoughts on the experiments here: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/shaping-up-researchers-reconstruct-early-stages-of-embryo-development

More on this will follow soon.