Chinese scientists unveil the "mystery" of primate embryonic prointestinal movement

Beijing, November 4 (Xinhua) -- A research team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently completed a work to reproduce the occurrence of embryonic prosthesis in non-human primates in vitro, which has established an important research foundation for studying the early embryonic development process of primates. The results have been published online in the internationally renowned academic journal Science.

From a developmental biology perspective, important moments in a person's life are not birth, marriage, and death, but the movement of the original intestine. This is the most special stage of early embryonic development, and the number of cells will directly increase from a few hundred to tens of thousands. Once abnormalities occur, they often lead to major diseases such as pregnancy failure or organ defects after birth.

The study, done in collaboration with the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Kunming Institute of Zoology, and the Institute of Innovation in Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, established a new in vitro culture system that can support the embryos of crab-eating monkeys to grow in vitro for up to 20 days after fertilization. Embryos cultured in vitro fully reflect the key events of early development in vivo after implantation at the structural, cellular and molecular levels, and the development reaches the stage of protoembocculture.

Wang Hongmei, one of the corresponding authors and a researcher at the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced that the fertilized eggs of mammals form blastocysts, and before and after implantation in the uterus, some cells in the embryo begin to move, rearrange and differentiate, start the movement of the intestinal tract, and form three germ layers of inner, middle and outer germs, laying the foundation for the establishment of the embryonic body axis and organ development. Due to ethical restrictions, in vitro human embryo culture cannot exceed 14 days after fertilization, and primate intestinal motility mostly occurs 14 days after fertilization, so biologists know little about human protointestinal motility, a milestone in primate development.

Academician Qiao Jie, president of the Third Hospital of Peking University, commented that monkeys are considered to be reliable animal models for the study of human physiology and pathology, and the establishment of an in vitro culture system for postimplantation development provides a platform for studying the process of postimplantation embryonic development of primates, which will greatly improve scientists' understanding of primate and early human embryonic development and related diseases, especially for the discussion of the causes of adverse pregnancy and fetal malformations.