Team maps family tree of over 1 million mouse embryo cells
Researchers in the lab of Professor Jonathan Weissman at MIT's Whitehead Institute tracked the family history of over a million cells in developing mouse embryos. The study, with Yale University and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, appears in the peer-reviewed journal Cell.
The team used a tool called PEtracer, which makes small DNA changes that pass to daughter cells, so scientists can work backward to find each cell's ancestors. They combined these trees with data on gene activity and cell position. The researchers say the map could help explain birth defects and cancer, and guide stem cell research. The work was done in mice, so any link to human health is still indirect.