It’s challenging to sustain a pregnancy when food is short, or conditions are otherwise tough. That’s why many mammalian embryos can postpone their growth to get through periods of environmental ...

Conditional genetics and single-embryo RNA-seq show that SETDB1 extinguishes the transient, retroelement-driven transcriptional programs of the totipotent two-cell state to facilitate the exit from ...

Scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), used CRISPR to engineer cellular models of embryos that mimic what happens in the first few days after reproductive cells meet. These ...

A stretch of DNA in the mouse genome left by ancient viral infections is crucial for early development in the womb, new research shows. According to the study, published in December in the journal ...

Researchers have discovered a key transition in early embryonic development is facilitated by decreasing levels of a viral protein inserted into the DNA of our early animal ancestors. Researchers at ...

Descriptions of the embryo go back at least to the time of Aristotle, but it has only been since the late 19 th century and early 20 th century that advances in experimental approaches allowed ...

In the earliest hours after fertilization, an embryo takes its first steps toward becoming a living organism by shedding maternal control and activating its own genetic program. This critical process, ...