2024-09-26 15:05:00
Information published in the magazine’Egg cell‘have identified the molecular mechanisms that control embryonic diapause, that is, the ability to temporarily slow down growth in human cells.
The information is especially important in the context of reproductive medicinehow to unlock new ways to improve reproductive health.
In some mammals, the period of fetal development, which is usually normal, can be adjusted to increase the chances of survival of pregnancy and mother. This process of temporarily slowing down growth occurs at the blastocyst stage, just before implantation of the embryo in the uterus. During this process, the fetus is free floating and the pregnancy is late. This resting state can last for weeks or months before growth spurts when conditions are favorable. Although not all mammals use this breeding technique, the ability to delay growth can be activated experimentally.
However, until now it is unknown whether human cells can respond to diapause factors.
Because of the effects ethicsscientists do not conduct experiments on human embryos, but instead use human stem cells and cell-based blastocyst models called blastoids.
These blastoids are scientifically and ethically different from using embryos for research.
In this way they discovered that a molecular pathway, the mTOR signaling pathway, in these stem cell models induces a resting state similar to diapause. “The mTOR pathway is an important regulator of growth and development in embryos,” he said. Aydan Bulut-Karslıoğluresearcher at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. “When we treat human stem cells and blastoids as well an mTOR inhibitor“We observed growth arrest, which means that human cells can switch off the molecular machinery to induce a diapause-like response.”
The findings provide novel insights into the processes that govern our early development
This resting state is characterized by reduced cell division, slower growth, and a reduced ability to adhere to the uterine lining. Importantly, the ability to enter this level of reactivity appears to be restricted to a short period of development. “The developmental period of blastoids can be extended to the blastocyst stage, which is exactly the stage that diapause occurs in most animals,” he explained. People P. Choice. Furthermore, this latency is reversed and blastoids resume normal development when the mTOR pathway is reactivated.
Pregnant
The results show that humans, like other mammals, may have a mechanism available to temporarily slow their growth, even if this mechanism is not used during pregnancy. “This power may be a part of the evolutionary process that we no longer use,” he said. Nicolas Rivronof the Australian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. “Although we have lost the ability to enter into rest naturally, these experiments suggest that we still have c.We have stored this inner energy and can release it».
For basic research, the question arises whether human and other mammalian cells enter the resting state by similar or alternative means and use them for the same purposes, for example, to stop or the period of their growth and implantation.
Collectively, the new findings provide new insights into the processes that govern our early development, which may open new avenues for improving reproductive health.
#discovered #delayed #change #human #development