ArticleCell2025
Fertilization triggers early proteomic symmetry breaking in mammalian embryos.
Article in Cell, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Probing the proteome at cellular scale.Nature · 2026Article
- A Single-Cell Proteomic Atlas of Cardiac Fibrosis Reveals Cell-Type-Specific Remodeling and Discordant Protein Regulation.Proteomics · 2026Article
- Asymmetric RBBP7 regulates the first cell fate decision of early mammalian embryos.Cell discovery · 2026Article
- Subcellularly Resolved 3D Translatome in Mouse Oocytes and Early Embryos.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Decoding the origins of cellular self-organization for engineered biology.Nature biotechnology · 2026Review
- Proteomics-based insights into mammalian oocyte and early embryo development.Nature cell biology · 2026Review
- Probing RNA-protein interactions in the early mouse embryo.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Variable partition of non-homogeneous ooplasm sets the stage for divergent potency of 2-cell stage blastomeres.Molecular human reproduction · 2026Article
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22 authors.
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Abstract
While non-mammalian embryos often rely on spatial pre-patterning, mammalian development has long been thought to begin with equivalent blastomeres. However, emerging evidence challenges this. Here, using multiplexed and label-free single-cell proteomics, we identify over 300 asymmetrically abundant proteins-many involved in protein degradation and transport-dividing mouse 2-cell-stage blastomeres into two distinct clusters, which we term alpha and beta. These proteomic asymmetries are detectable as early as the zygote stage, intensify by the 4-cell stage, and correlate with the sperm entry site, implicating fertilization as a symmetry-breaking event. Splitting 2-cell-stage embryos into halves reveals that beta blastomeres possess greater developmental potential than alpha blastomeres. Similar clustering and protein enrichment patterns found in human 2-cell embryos suggest this early asymmetry might be conserved. These findings uncover a previously unrecognized proteomic pre-patterning triggered by fertilization in mammalian embryos, with important implications for understanding totipotency and early lineage bias.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.