Turner, David A.Martínez Arias, Alfonso2025-03-272025-03-272024Turner DA, Martinez Arias A. Three-dimensional stem cell models of mammalian gastrulation. Bioessays. 2024 Dec;46(12):e2400123. DOI: 10.1002/bies.2024001230265-9247http://hdl.handle.net/10230/70019Gastrulation is a key milestone in the development of an organism. It is a period of cell proliferation and coordinated cellular rearrangement, that creates an outline of the body plan. Our current understanding of mammalian gastrulation has been improved by embryo culture, but there are still many open questions that are difficult to address because of the intrauterine development of the embryos and the low number of specimens. In the case of humans, there are additional difficulties associated with technical and ethical challenges. Over the last few years, pluripotent stem cell models are being developed that have the potential to become useful tools to understand the mammalian gastrulation. Here we review these models with a special emphasis on gastruloids and provide a survey of the methods to produce them robustly, their uses, relationship to embryos, and their prospects as well as their limitations.application/pdfeng© 2024 The Author(s). BioEssays published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bies.2024001233D modelsEmbryonic stem cellsGastrulationGastruloidsOrganoidsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess