Some kinetics of blastocyst formation as studied by the process of reconstitution

✍ Scribed by Daniel, Joseph C.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1963
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 515 KB
• Volume: 154
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-104X
• DOI: 10.1002/jez.1401540210

✦ Synopsis

The mechanism providing for the accumulation of fluid inside the cellular mass that constitutes the morula stage of mammalian development, the result of which is blastulation, is poorly understood. Lutwak-Mann ('59) after studying the uptake of various elements by the blastocyst, maintained that this mechanism is entirely unknown. Some attempts have been made to understand the mechanism using calculations from normal blastocysts grown in vivo (Daniel, '64). The present paper attempts to describe several aspects of this mechanism using the reconstitutive process of rabbit blastocysts under in vitro conditions. When young rabbit blastocysts are ruptured or fragmented into several pieces, each piece accumulates fluid and reconstitutes the spherical form of the original blastocyst (Daniel, '61 ). Reconstitution occurs from pieces that have no inner cell mass as well as from those that do. Fluid provision for blastulation is therefore assigned as a function of the trophoblast. The process of reconstitution and the reconstituted products, called exblastocysts, may therefore be used to study the mechanism.