Japanese Scientists Develop Early-Stage Mouse Embryos in Space, Showing Gravity Has No Significant Effect in the Process [Study]

Researchers from Japan made huge progress in growing embryos in space. The team had successfully showed that it's possible to reproduce a woman on the International Space Station (ISS).

Growing Embryos on Space

The first study demonstrating the potential for human reproduction in space used mouse embryos that were nurtured on the International Space Station and matured normally, according to a team of Japanese researchers.

In August 2021, the researchers-which included Teruhiko Wakayama, a professor at the University of Yamanashi's Advanced Biotechnology Centre-sent frozen mouse embryos to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a rocket.

Using a unique tool created for this purpose, astronauts thawed the early-stage embryos and developed them aboard the space station for four days.

According to the scientists, "the embryos cultured under microgravity conditions developed" normally into blastocysts, which are cells that eventually give rise to the placenta and fetus.

The study "clearly demonstrated that gravity had no significant effect," the researchers wrote. Furthermore, they claimed that after examining the blastocysts that were returned to their laboratories on Earth, there had been no appreciable alterations in the state of the DNA and genes.

This is "the first-ever study that shows mammals may be able to thrive in space," the University of Yamanashi and national research organization Riken said in a joint statement on Saturday.

It's "the world's first experiment that cultured early-stage mammalian embryos under complete microgravity of ISS," according to the announcement.

"In the future, it will be necessary to transplant the blastocysts that were cultured in ISS's microgravity into mice to see if mice can give birth" to confirm that the blastocysts are normal, the study added.

Future expeditions for space exploration and colonization may benefit from this research.

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Human Embryo Models

According to Amander Clark, president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, a human embryo is created by fertilizing an egg and sperm. Embryo models, on the other hand, self-assemble from pluripotent stem cells, which are unable to differentiate into nearly any form of bodily cell. The notion of an embryo, as used in clinical, medical, and scientific contexts, does not apply to embryo models, said Clark, who is also a UCLA stem cell researcher, developmental biologist, and geneticist.

Using model or donated human embryos, researchers have long studied the first week or so of human development. Researchers found out how a ball of cells called a blastocyst grows from them. Blastocysts consist of an outer layer of cells that will form the placenta and other support systems for the growing fetus, and an inner cluster of cells that will develop into the body.

The actual action takes place within the first few weeks of life, according to stem cell researcher and embryologist Jacob Hanna of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Between days seven and 35 following fertilization, the embryo starts to develop each of its organs.

Researchers have put together embryo models that have some of the cell types needed for ordinary development, but not all of them. The freshly discovered embryo models mimic the elements seen in an embryo placed in a uterus while not having a uterus.

However, Clark stressed that the models are only depicting a very small portion of embryo development, such as the events that take place as an embryo implants and how the embryo self-assembles. But after that, they kind of fell apart. She continued, saying that no model can accurately represent the real thing.