Imaging mouse embryonic development

For the past three decades, methods for culturing mouse embryos ex vivo have been optimized in order to improve embryo viability and physiology throughout critical stages of embryogenesis. Combining advances made in the production of transgenic animals and in the development of different varieties of fluorescent proteins (FPs), time-lapse imaging is becoming more and more popular in the analysis of dynamic events during mouse development. Targeting FPs to specific cell types or subcellular compartments has enabled researchers to study cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and changes in cell morphology in living mouse embryos in real time. Here we provide a guide for time-lapse imaging of early stages of mouse embryo development.