Understanding the Molecular Circuitry of Cell Lineage Specification in the Early Mouse Embryo

• Main Authors: Anna-Katerina Hadjantonakis, Rebecca-Ayme Hughes, Anna Bergsmedh, Mary E. Donohoe
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2011-07-01
• Series: Genes
• Subjects: mouse embryo; early development; lineage specification; epigenetic marks; transcriptional circuitry; stem cells
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/2/3/420/

Pluripotent stem cells hold great promise for cell-based therapies in regenerative medicine. However, critical to understanding and exploiting mechanisms of cell lineage specification, epigenetic reprogramming, and the optimal environment for maintaining and differentiating pluripotent stem cells is a fundamental knowledge of how these events occur in normal embryogenesis. The early mouse embryo has provided an excellent model to interrogate events crucial in cell lineage commitment and plasticity, as well as for embryo-derived lineage-specific stem cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Here we provide an overview of cell lineage specification in the early (preimplantation) mouse embryo focusing on the transcriptional circuitry and epigenetic marks necessary for successive differentiation events leading to the formation of the blastocyst.