Lab Chat: How stem cells get in formation

A TIME-LAPSE OF STEM CELLS ON THE MOVE, WITH STARTING POSITIONS SHOWN IN PURPLE. (NANDAN NERURKAR / COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)

New research captures how a group of stem cells moves from the surface of a developing chick embryo to its center, forming a tube that becomes the lining of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. Here's what Nandan Nerurkar of Columbia told me about the research, published in Nature.

What did you set out to study?

The goal of our work is to understand how genes and molecules control physical forces that precisely sculpt the embryo from a seemingly disorganized ball of cells. This particular [study] aims to address how a special population of cells — called the endoderm — transforms from a sheet on the surface of the embryo to a tube on the inside, eventually giving rise to the entire respiratory and gastrointestinal organs.

What did you find?

We found that a subset of these cells convert a biochemical gradient of a protein into a mechanical force gradient, generating the cell movements that form the hindgut, which goes on to form the large intestine, colon, and half of the small intestine.