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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

The error-prone step at the heart of making an embryo

High-resolution imaging shows why the union between two sets of chromosomes goes awry as least as often as not.
Light micrograph of a human egg cell during fertilisation

As a human egg cell is fertilized, two chromosome-containing cellular structures (dotted circles, centre) merge into one — a process that often goes wrong. Credit: Pascal Goetgheluck/Science Photo Library

After a sperm fertilizes an egg, the chromosomes of both unite into a single genome, if all goes according to plan. Now, observations of developing embryos show that this all-important process often goes awry — a finding that helps to explain why at least half of newly formed human embryos have the wrong number of chromosomes.

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Nature 593, 170 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01207-4

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