BMP and Activin treatment of mouse extraembryonic endoderm (XEN) cells

XEN cells are derived from the primitive endoderm of mouse blastocysts. In culture and in chimeras they exhibit properties of parietal endoderm. However, BMP signaling promotes XEN cells to form an epithelium and differentiate into visceral endoderm (VE). Of the several different subtypes of VE described, BMP induces a subtype that is most similar to the VE adjacent to the trophoblast-derived extraembryonic ectoderm.

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Paca A, Séguin CA, Clements M, Ryczko M, Rossant J, Rodriguez TA, Kunath T