Bovine blastocyst like structures derived from stem cell cultures

Understanding blastocyst formation and implantation is critical for improving farm animal reproduction but is hampered by a limited supply of embryos. We developed an efficient method to generate bovine blastocyst-like structures (termed blastoids) via the assembly of trophoblast stem cells and expanded potential stem cells. Bovine blastoids resemble blastocysts in morphology, cell composition, single-cell transcriptomes, and represent an accessible in vitro model for studying bovine embryogenesis. Overall design: Bovine trophoblast stem cells (TSCs) and bovine and extended pluripotent stem cells (EPSCs), were aggregated in tFACL+PD and collected at day 4.Single-cell RNA-Seq was performed using the 10x Genomics Chromium Chip and sequenced by Illumina NextSeq 500/550 sequencing systems.