2009 Lecture 4

From Embryology

Week 3 Development

Introduction

This lecture will continue from the second week into the third week and discuss early placentation and gastrulation. Note that we will be covering only the early events of placentation and a later lecture will cover this topic in more detail.

  • Lectopia Lecture Audio

Lecture Overview

  • Understand broadly the events of week 2-3 of human development
  • Understand the process early placentation, villi formation
  • Understand the process of gastrulation
  • Understand the process of axis formation

Early Placentation

Early placenta anchoring villi

Syncitiotrophoblasts - invading the decidua and secreting hCG Cytotrophoblasts - form a cellular layer around the blastocyst, proliferates and extends behind syncitiotrophoblasts

Early Utero-Placental exchange - transfer of nutrition from maternal lacunae filled with secretions from uterine glands and maternal blood from blood vessels. The development of trophoblast villi extending into the uterine decidua.

There are three stages of villi development:

  • Primary Villi - cytotrophoblast
  • Secondary Villi - cytotrophoblast + extraembryonic mesoderm
  • Tertiary Villi - cytotrophoblast + extraembryonic mesoderm+ blood vessels

There are two main types of early villi:

  • Anchoring villi - attached to decidua
  • Floating villi - not attached to decidua, floating in maternal lacunae.

Gastrulation

Embryonic Disc showing primitive streak Gastrulation, (Greek = belly) means the formation of gut, but has been used in a more looser sense to to describe the formation of the trilaminar embryo. The epiblast layer, consisting of totipotential cells, derives all 3 embryo layers: endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm. The primitive streak is the visible feature which represents the site of cell migration to form the additional layers.

Historically, gastrulation was one of the earliest observable morphological event occurring in the frog embryo. Currently, the molecular and physical mechanisms that regulate patterning and migration during this key event are being investigated in several different animal models. In humans, it is proposed that similar mechanisms regulate gastrulation to those found in other vertebrates.

Notochord

UNSW Embryology Links

Glossary Links

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References

Textbooks

  • The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology (8th Edition) by Keith L. Moore and T.V.N Persaud - Chapter 3
  • Larsen’s Human Embryology by GC. Schoenwolf, SB. Bleyl, PR. Brauer and PH. Francis-West - Chapter 3

Online Textbooks

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Next Lecture

Lab 2 | Lecture 5 | Course Timetable

Dr Mark Hill 2009 UNSW CRICOS Provider Code No. 00098G