title: Origin of cellular asymmetries in the pre-implantation mouse embryo: a hypothesis.
abstract: The first cell fate decision during mouse development concerns whether a blastomere will contribute to the inner cell mass (ICM; which gives rise to the embryo proper) or to trophectoderm (TE; which gives rise to the placenta). The position of a cell within an 8- to 16-cell-stage embryo correlates with its future fate, with outer cells contributing to TE and inner cells to the ICM. It remains unknown, however, whether an earlier pre-pattern exists. Here, we propose a hypothesis that could account for generation of such a pre-pattern and which is based on epigenetic asymmetry (such as in histone or DNA methylation) between maternal and paternal genomes in the zygote.
authors.affiliation: Developmental Genetics Group, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, 1-3 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan CREST, Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST), Osaka University, 1-3 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
authors.forename: Katsuyoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takaoka
authors.affiliation: Developmental Genetics Group, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, 1-3 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan CREST, Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST), Osaka University, 1-3 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan hamada@fbs.osaka-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hamada
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001757:Blastomeres / Q000502:physiology*; D019521:Body Patterning / Q000502:physiology*; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D019070:Cell Lineage / Q000502:physiology*; D047108:Embryonic Development / Q000502:physiology*; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic / Q000502:physiology*; D016678:Genome / Q000235:genetics*; D051379:Mice; D008954:Models, Biological
keywords: cell fate; epigenetic; mouse embryo; pre-implantation