Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.
Cell adhesion plays a critical role in the differentiation of the trophectoderm epithelium and the morphogenesis of the blastocyst. In the mouse embryo, E-cadherin mediated adhesion initiates at compaction at the 8-cell stage, regulated post-translationally via protein kinase C and other signalling molecules. E-cadherin adhesion organises epithelial polarisation of blastomeres at compaction. Subsequently, the proteins of the epithelial tight junction are expressed and assemble at the apicolateral contact region between outer blastomeres in three phases, culminating at the 32-cell stage when blastocoel cavitation begins. Cell adhesion events also coordinate the cellular allocation and spatial segregation of the inner cell mass (ICM) of the blastocyst, and the maintenance of epithelial (trophectoderm) and non-epithelial (ICM) phenotypes during early morphogenesis.