The visceral endoderm is a polarized epithelial monolayer necessary for early embryonic development in rodents. A key feature of this epithelium is an active endocytosis and degradation of maternal ...

Transposable elements (TEs) are genomic elements present in multiple copies in mammalian genomes. TEs were thought to have little functional relevance but recent studies report roles in biological ...

Stem cells that give rise to the mouse yolk sac have been isolated and cultured in the lab for the first time by RIKEN researchers, raising the possibility of artificially creating mouse embryos from ...

How do cells turn into organs? During embryonic development, three germ layers form, known as the endoderm, the mesoderm, and the ectoderm. These germ layers give rise to different parts of the ...

For several years, researchers studied human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to understand the unique features of these pluripotent cells, but on their own, they poorly resembled the complex structures ...