First Real-Time Embryo Growth Video May Solve Human Development ‘Mystery’

What do the earliest stages of pregnancy look like?

Embryonic development has been studied extensively, but most of our knowledge of the earliest stages of a growing baby comes from still photographs. However, understanding the dynamic processes that occur during these early stages can help us learn more about how congenital birth defects develop and how to stop them.

Now, for the first time, scientists have captured real-time images and video of these early stages of development, providing exciting insights into the long-standing “mystery” of human development.

“It is very difficult to film these stages of embryonic development as they occur after human embryos have implanted in the womb,” said Melanie White, who directs the Dynamics of Morphogenesis Laboratory at the University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Biosciences. Newsweek.

“We know a lot about discrete stages and key moments during development, but most of our knowledge comes from examining static images of fixed specimens at different times.

“One of the main things we lack is dynamic information about how the embryo coordinates the movement, positioning and fate of its cells to move from one stage to another. This information can only be obtained using live imaging approaches where we can track how embryonic tissue changes over time, how cells interact with each other and move in real time to organize into complex tissues in the forming embryo is still a mystery.”

Much of what we know about embryonic development comes from studies in mice (for obvious ethical reasons.) But mouse embryos also implant in the uterus before these early embryonic stages, so they have the same access problems as human embryos when word for live images.

“Furthermore, mouse embryos do not develop with the same morphology as humans at these early stages,” White said.

However, unlike mammals, bird embryos develop outside the female’s body, in the appropriate layer of an external egg. “Avian (bird) embryos are an excellent model of human development as they have very similar post-implantation stage morphology and development to humans,” White said. “The development of many major organs including the heart and the neural tube (which goes on to form the brain and spinal cord) is very similar.

“They also have the advantage of developing outside the mother in an egg, so they are much more accessible to study.”

In a new paper, published in Journal of Cell Biology, White and colleagues at the Institute of Molecular Biology used quail embryos with fluorescently labeled cellular components, which allowed them to image the dynamic growth of the early embryo in real time. Specifically, they observed changes in the growth of long cell filaments called the cytoskeleton that play an important role in cell structure, movement and transport.

As you can see in the video above, fluorescent filaments clearly show how cells move relative to each other during these early developmental processes.

“We hope this will be a useful tool for other researchers in the field trying to understand cell biology and embryonic development more broadly,” said White. “In our lab, we are now building on the initial experiments we did to understand how the heart and neural tube form in real time. We are also studying how mutations identified in patients or maternal factors (diabetes, nutritional deficits) disrupt .this development and lead to birth defects.

“In the long term, we aim to identify new pathways that can be used to control birth defects and ultimately, develop treatments to prevent these devastating disorders.”

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