Morphogenesis of the mammalian blastocyst

The first 4 days of mouse pre-implantation development are characterized by a period of segmentation, including morphogenetic events that are required for the divergence of embryonic and extra-embryonic lineages. These extra-embryonic tissues are essential for the implantation into the maternal uterus and for the development of the fœtus. In this review, we first discuss data showing unambiguously that no essential axis of development is set up before the late blastocyst stage, and explain why the pre-patterning described during the early phases (segmentation) of development in other vertebrates cannot apply to mammalian pre-implantation period. Then, we describe important cellular and molecular events that are required for the morphogenesis of the blastocyst.