Cell Stem Cell (@cp-cellstemcell.bsky.social)

How ever-expanding organoids from epithelial stem cells were developed: A hypothesis-free approach My lab did not set out to study the intestine. We began in immunology, trying to understand the transcriptional control of T cell development. That work led us to define the Tcf family of transcription factors and, eventually, to the realization that they constitute the nuclear effectors of the Wnt pathway. A decisive turn came when Tcf4 knockout mice showed a striking phenotype. They failed to set up the stem cell compartments of the intestinal tract, the crypts of Lieberkuhn. Reading up on gut biology, we learned that these crypts accomplish a quite incredible feat: they replace the entire epithelial lining of the intestinal tract each week of life, the fastest self-renewal process of any solid tissue in mammals. http://dlvr.it/TSTvwb