#cell development

Counting Copies

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You have almost as many cells in your brain as there are stars in the Milky Way – roughly 200 billion – all of which came from a small pool of fast-dividing stem cells. In order for the brain to develop correctly as a foetus grows in the womb, not only is the number of cells important – they must also be the right types of cells in the right places. To find out more about how this happens, researchers developed a computer algorithm that can identify individual cells in living tissue (each cell is highlighted by a white spot in this image) and track what happens as they divide and specialise. Using fruit fly larvae as a simple model for humans, the researchers were able to continuously monitor developing larval brains for up to 24 hours. The results provide unprecedented insights into how complex organs like brains are built from single cells.

Written by Kat Arney

Image from work by Martin Hailstone and colleagues

Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife, May 2020

See Me Now

Precision gene editing techniques such as CRISPR have revolutionised biomedical research over the past few years. Scientists are now able to add, remove or alter specific genes – or even specific ‘letters’ of the genetic code – in ever more sophisticated ways in order to understand how genes work in healthy cells or organisms and what happens when they go wrong in disease. Two of the greatest challenges in the field are accuracy and efficiency, ensuring that only the right changes are made and that as many cells as possible are modified. These images of zebrafish embryos reveal the cells that have been altered using a new, highly specific gene editing tool, enabling researchers to follow distinct cell types during development. It's not just zebrafish – the new technique also works in pig and human cells, suggesting it could be used much more widely for genetic engineering and gene therapy in the future.

Written by Kat Arney

Image adapted from work by Wesley A Wierson, Jordan M Welker and Maira P Almeida, and colleagues

Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife, May 2020

Mammary Makers

While mammary ducts are essential to developing breast tissue and milk production, they are also prone to genetic mutations which may lead to cancer. To investigate, scientists grew these 'model' ducts (highlighted in turquoise) from human mammary cells in the lab, while also recreating their microenvironment of nearby blood vessels (in green with blue nuclei). The middle and right ducts developed from healthy cells mixed with cells harbouring mutations in important genes – with drastic effects on their development and shape compared to the healthy duct (left). Surprisingly, chemicals produced by the mutated ducts affect cells in nearby vessels, leaving them weakened and 'leaky'. Such biology-mimicking models continue to offer perspectives on cancer that may be difficult to investigate in living tissues, and future studies may suggest how chemical messages between these tissues, an example of paracrine signalling, may be switched on or off during development or disease.

Written by John Ankers

Image adapted from work by Matthew L. Kutys and William J. Polacheck, and colleagues

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, July 2020

Building Bridges

It’s a classic ‘chicken-and-egg’ situation. Microtubules are small tubes that provide essential structure and transport routes for a whole variety of processes inside our cells. But during very early development our cells don’t have a centrosome – the structure that usually organises these microtubules, neatly laying them out across the cell to perform their functions. So how do they function without their guide steering them in the right direction? By looking at living cells in a developing mouse embryo that was modified to produce a fluorescent protein alongside its microtubules (pictured in blue), researchers spotted the answer: The cells are connected by dense bridges of microtubules (the light blue structures joining each cell), which direct the growth of more microtubules inside. Strands emanating out from these bridges reach across the cell to help transport key molecules that ultimately direct the growth from these few cells into a whole independent organism.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Image from work by J. Zenker and colleagues

Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore

Image reprinted with permission from the AAAS - the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Published in Science, September 2017

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