Reprograming of murine blastocoele formation

Abstract

The present study shows that there is communication between reaggregated asynchronous cleavage stage blastomeres that regulates blastocoele formation. Individual blastomeres from eight‐cell murine embryos were transferred to empty zonae pellucidae, intact two‐cell embryos, or enucleated two‐cell embryos, and were examined over a period of 75 hours for development of cavitation. It was found that the isolated blastomeres cavitated concurrently with intact control eight‐cell embryos, while intact control two‐cell embryos cavitated 24 hours later. However, the embryos resulting from combining a two‐cell embryo and a blastomere from an eight‐cell embryo cavitated at a time in between the eight‐ and two‐cell controls.