Whole embryo culture of presomitic mouse embryos

Rat embryos explanted at the presomite stage and cultured through limb bud stages develop to well formed embryos and exhibit growth and differentiation which mimic those observed in vivo at corresponding stages. In contrast, the culture of presomite stage mouse embryos has proven to be much less successful. In the present study presomitic and 3-4 somite stage mouse embryos were cultured for 48 hr. Four stages of presomitic mouse embryos corresponding to late primitive streak, early neural plate, mid neural plate and late neural plate were cultured for 24 hr in a mixture of mouse serum (12.5%), rat serum (25%) and human serum (62.5%) and during a further period of 24 hr in a mixture of human (80%) and rat (20%) serum. Two explantation procedures were used. Embryos of 3-4 somites, cultured as a reference, developed in quite a similar way to embryos in vivo and in this group very few dysmorphogeneses were observed. In contrast, the development of earlier embryos was not reproducible and the two explantation procedures led to similar results.