Primary Specification of Blastocyst Trophectoderm by ScRNA-seq: New Insights into Embryo Implantation

Overview

Journal Sci Adv

Specialties Biology
Science

Date 2022 Aug 10

PMID 35947672

Authors

Dandan Liu

Yidong Chen

Yixin Ren

Peng Yuan

Nan Wang

Qiang Liu

Cen Yang

Zhiqiang Yan

Ming Yang

Jing Wang

Ying Lian

Jie Yan

Fan Zhai

Yanli Nie

Xiaohui Zhu

Yuan Chen

Rong Li

Hsun-Ming Chang

Peter C K Leung

Jie Qiao

Liying Yan

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Mechanisms of implantation such as determination of the attachment pole, fetal-maternal communication, and underlying causes of implantation failure are largely unexplored. Here, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing on peri-implantation embryos from both humans and mice to explore trophectoderm (TE) development and embryo-endometrium cross-talk. We found that the transcriptomes of polar and mural TE diverged after embryos hatched from the zona pellucida in both species, with polar TE being more mature than mural TE. The implantation poles show similarities in cell cycle activities, as well as in expression of genes critical for implantation and placentation. Embryos that either fail to attach in vitro or fail to implant in vivo show abnormalities in pathways related to energy production, protein metabolism, and 18 ribosomal RNA mA methylation. These findings uncover the gene expression characteristics of humans and mice TE differentiation during the peri-implantation period and provide new insights into embryo implantation.

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