Abstract
Through proliferation and differentiation, a single cell, the zygote, can give rise to a complex organism composed of many types of cells. Up to the eight-cell embryo stage, the blastomeres are morphologically identical and distributed symmetrically in the mammalian embryo. Functionally, in some species, they are all totipotent. However, due to the compaction of blastomeres and the asymmetrical cell division at the late phase of the eight-cell embryo, the blastomeres of the morula are no longer identical. During the transition from morula to blastocyst, blastomeres differentiate, resulting in the first cell fate decision in embryogenesis, namely, the segregation of the inner cell mass and the trophectoderm. In this review, we will discuss the regulatory mechanisms essential for the cell fate choice during blastocyst development, including transcriptional regulation, epigenetic regulation, microRNAs, and signal transduction.
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Acknowledgements
GQD was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the NIH Director's Pioneer Award of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, and private funds contributed to the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the Children's Hospital Stem Cell Program, USA. GQD is a recipient of Clinical Scientist Awards in Translational Research from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and is an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. LC was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 90919009), the National Key Basic Research and Development Program of China (Grant no. 2009CB941000 and 2010CB833603), and the Ministry of Agriculture of China (Grant no. 2009ZX08006-010B and 2009ZX08006-011B).
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Chen, L., Wang, D., Wu, Z. et al. Molecular basis of the first cell fate determination in mouse embryogenesis. Cell Res 20, 982–993 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/cr.2010.106
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