Refine
Has Fulltext
- yes (1)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (1)
Year of publication
- 2023 (1)
Document Type
- Journal article (1) (remove)
Language
- English (1)
Keywords
- signaling (1) (remove)
Institute
- Center for Computational and Theoretical Biology (1) (remove)
EU-Project number / Contract (GA) number
- 2020010013 (1)
Summary
Embryos develop in a concerted sequence of spatiotemporal arrangements of cells. In the preimplantation mouse embryo, the distribution of the cells in the inner cell mass evolves from a salt-and-pepper pattern to spatial segregation of two distinct cell types. The exact properties of the salt-and-pepper pattern have not been analyzed so far. We investigate the spatiotemporal distribution of NANOG- and GATA6-expressing cells in the ICM of the mouse blastocysts with quantitative three-dimensional single-cell-based neighborhood analyses. A combination of spatial statistics and agent-based modeling reveals that the cell fate distribution follows a local clustering pattern. Using ordinary differential equations modeling, we show that this pattern can be established by a distance-based signaling mechanism enabling cells to integrate information from the whole inner cell mass into their cell fate decision. Our work highlights the importance of longer-range signaling to ensure coordinated decisions in groups of cells to successfully build embryos.
Highlights
• The local cell neighborhood and global ICM population composition correlate
• ICM cells show characteristics of local clustering in early and mid mouse blastocysts
• ICM patterning requires integration of signals from cells beyond the first neighbors