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The in vitro culture of mammalian embryos

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Advancements in methods that enable in vitro culture of mammalian embryos have become an essential way of investigating mammalian early embryonic development and modeling developmental and pregnancy-related disorders. Here, we discuss the recent method development in this space and analyze current challenges and future directions.

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Fig. 1: Overview of mouse, human and monkey embryo development and representative IVC process.
Fig. 2: The morphology of cynomolgus IVC embryos.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFA1103100, 2021YFA0805701, 2020YFA0112201 and 2021YFC2700302), the Key Deployment Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ZDBS-ZRKJZ-TLC001) and grants from the NSFC (82192870, 82322026, 32100654 and 82201857).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Xulun Wu, Jinglei Zhai, Qian Li.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xulun Wu, Jinglei Zhai, Qian Li & Hongmei Wang

  2. Institute for Stem Cell and Regeneration, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xulun Wu, Jinglei Zhai, Qian Li & Hongmei Wang

  3. Beijing Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, Beijing, China

    Xulun Wu, Jinglei Zhai, Qian Li & Hongmei Wang

  4. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xulun Wu & Hongmei Wang

Authors
  1. Xulun Wu
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  2. Jinglei Zhai
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  3. Qian Li
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  4. Hongmei Wang
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Contributions

X.W., J.Z., Q.L. and H.W. cowrote the manuscript. X.W. and J.Z. composed the figures.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hongmei Wang.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Wu, X., Zhai, J., Li, Q. et al. The in vitro culture of mammalian embryos. Nat Methods 20, 1855–1858 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-02071-y

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