哺乳动物的胚胎发育早期，特别是原肠运动，形成了胚胎器官发生、形态建成的整个发育蓝图，是生命体最重要的分子事件之一。然而，原肠运动过程中三个胚层是如何形成的，其细胞分化和命运决定的分子机制是什么，都非常不清楚。囿于早期胚胎细胞数量极其稀少，并且取材非常困难，长期以来对胚胎早期发育中的胚层决定研究都限于少量特定基因的功能，而无法反映体内真实而复杂的发育状况。本项目拟通过建立小鼠原肠运动从早期、中期到晚期的全胚胎空间转录组图谱，在整体水平上系统而全面的研究这一复杂的生物学过程，揭示小鼠早期胚胎发育过程中不同胚层命运决定和细胞谱系建立的时空动态调控机制，并为人早期发育相关疾病的研究提供借鉴和指导。

Animals have diverse body shapes with cells of distinct morphologies and functions. All the specific tissues and organs are derived following a blueprint established by gastrulation during the early embryogenesis. However, how the simple epiblast layer becomes organized and transformed into three germ layers including ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm is not well understood. In this proposal, we are aiming to establish the transcriptome of the whole gastrulation process with all the spatial information retained and eventually glean a comprehensive perspective of the molecular activities that determining the cell fates and lineage differentiation during gastrulation.