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Medical Definition of Germinal membrane
1. In many eggs with a large amount of yolk, cell division (cleavage) is restricted to a superficial layer of the fertilized egg (meroblastic cleavage). This layer is termed the blastoderm. In birds it is a flat disc of cells at one pole of the egg and in insects an outer layer of cells surrounding the yolk mass. This entry appears with permission from the Dictionary of Cell and Molecular Biology (11 Mar 2008)