ex vivo culture for preimplantation mouse embryo to analyse pluripotency

International audienceA couple of days after fertilization of a mouse oocyte by a sperm, two sequential cell differentiation events segregate pluripotent cells that can be identified by the presence of specific markers. Early mammalian embryos are relatively easy to recover as they are not yet implanted in the uterus matrix. Several decades of experimentation have enabled to find appropriate media to culture them, and therefore provide an excellent way to test different experimental set-up such as the use of signalling inhibitors. We provide here a commonly used protocol to culture preimplantation embryos as well as a method to detect pluripotent cells in blastocysts