mortality/aging
• abnormal (degenerated) homozygous embryos were observed at E5.5 and were not found at later stages
• empty implantation sites are found at later stages
• homozygous mutant blastocysts were indistinguishable from that of controls at E3.5
• after 7 days of culture, both mutant and control blastocysts produced the same trophectoderm (TE) outgrowths and inner cell mass (ICM); there were no differences in the mean ICM ratio (ICM area/TE area) between mutant and control cultured blastocysts.
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