Human gastruloids

Very little is known about the peri-gastrulation stage of human development, since international regulation prevents research on human embryos beyond 14 days post-fertilisation and very few anatomical specimens exist for this early period of gestation, leading some to describe it as a 'black box' of development.

To begin to examine some of the basic principles of this stage, we harness the self-organising properties of human Pluripotent Stem Cells (hPSCs) by aggregating them in 3D under defined conditions.

We have found that these small aggregates of hPSCs are able to self-organise by breaking-symmetry, undergoing axial elongation and organising their gene expression along an AP axis, that mirrors some of the known transcriptional signatures of mammalian development.

Human gastruloids therefore provide a new window to begin to explore some of the principles of early human development using a scalable, and experimentally-tractable in vitro system.