Participation of the paternal genome is not required before the eight-cell stage for full-term development of mouse embryos.
Differential expression of the paternal and maternal genomes during mouse embryonic development is considered a reason for both genomes being required for development to term. Extending previous studies performed on two-cell embryos, we show here that diploid embryos reconstituted at the four-cell stage from uniparental haploid blastomeres can produce living offspring. This result shows that for normal development to occur, a paternal genome does not need to be associated with a maternal genome within the same nucleus before the eight-cell stage.
Renard
J P
JP
Unité de Génétique des Mammifères, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.
Babinet
C
C
Barra
J
J
D000818:Animals; D001757:Blastomeres / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D002459:Cell Fusion; D004171:Diploidy; D004622:Embryo, Mammalian / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D005314:Embryonic and Fetal Development / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D015698:Genomic Library; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008808:Mice, Inbred CBA