Modeling embryonic patterning with human embryonic stem cell colonies

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• Eric Siggia, Rockefeller University
• Wednesday 03 June 2015, 14:15-15:15
• Todd Hamied Room, Dept. of Chemistry.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Lucy Colwell.

Embryos allocate cells to the three germ layers in a spatially ordered sequence. Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can generate the three germ layers in culture; however, differentiation is typically heterogeneous and spatially disordered. We show that geometric confinement is sufficient to trigger self-organized patterning in hESCs.

In response to BMP4 , colonies reproducibly differentiated to an outer trophectoderm-like ring, an inner ectodermal circle and a ring of mesendoderm expressing primitive-streak markers in between. Fates were defined relative to the boundary with a fixed length scale: small colonies corresponded to the outer layers of larger ones. Inhibitory signals limited the range of BMP4 signaling to the colony edge and induced a gradient of Activin-nodal signaling that patterned mesendodermal fates. These results demonstrate that the intrinsic tendency of stem cells to make patterns can be harnessed by controlling colony geometries and provide a quantitative assay for studying paracrine signaling in early development.

This talk is part of the Theory - Chemistry Research Interest Group series.

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