Yingnan Lei

1 Introduction The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a monolayer of post-mitotic, cobblestone-shaped, pigmented and polarised cells positioned at the interface between the choriocapillaris and the sensory neural retina. The differentiation of this tissue begins shortly after gastrulation, first with the specification of the eye field from the anterior neural plate. After, the optic vesicles appear, and the RPE will emerge from their proximal part.

eLife Assessment This study provides valuable insights into the cellular responses to complex aneuploidy in human preimplantation embryos. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is now convincing after addressing previous concerns. This work will be of interest to embryologists, geneticists and scholars working on reproductive medicine by increasing our understanding of how human embryos respond to chromosomal abnormalities.

Abstract Chromosomal abnormalities acquired during cell culture can compromise the differentiation potential of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). In this work, we identified a diminished differentiation capacity to retinal progenitor cells in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) with loss of chromosome 18q.