Embryonic stem cell identity grounded in the embryo

Abstract

Pluripotent embryonic stem cells (ESCs) can be derived from blastocyst-stage mouse embryos. However, the exact in vivo counterpart of ESCs has remained elusive. A combination of expression profiling and stem cell derivation identifies epiblast cells from late-stage blastocysts as the source, and functional equivalent, of ESCs.

Figure 1

Direct in vitro capture of embryo-derived epiblast cells. Single ICM cells were isolated from pre- and post-implantation embryos, and either pooled and expression profiled (not shown), or plated in medium containing 2i-LIF (see text for details) for the derivation of self-renewing naive-state ESCs. Arrows indicate the capacity of individual embryo-derived cells to give rise to ESCs.