Researchers at Institut Curie have now mapped the mechanical forces controlling compaction in human embryos. “While launching this study, we wanted an approach that would not be wasteful since human embryos are rare and ethically complicated. The approach that we took is something that has been very successful, which is that animal cells can be considered as soap bubbles which have a surface tension that can be mapped by various methods,” explained Jean-Léon Maître, lead author of a study published in Nature.
The researchers used micropipette aspiration, a well-established method that uses the Young–Laplace formula to determine surface tension and the Young–Dupre formula to calculate contact angles of the compacting cells by controlling the pressure applied to the embryo surface. They found that, as compared to mouse embryos, where compaction occurs at the 8-cell stage, in humans, compaction begins at the 8-cell stage but can continue through the 16-cell stage. Thus, in humans, compaction is not affected by a change in cell volume due to division.
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- Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-024-02312-8