Researchers have helped resolve a long-standing debate about which precursors in the developing mammalian embryo give rise to blood cells, after tracking the birth of these cells using in-vivo imaging that lasts for days, according to linkurl:a report;http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7231/full/nature07760.html in this week's Nature. The study is one of a handful of papers to come out in recent months to examine the question of hematopoietic cell origin. "I would say the nice thing about the latest paper is that everything is seen live -- which hasn't been possible before," said Francoise Dieterlen-Lievre of the Cellular and Molecular Embryology Institute in Nogent-sur-Marne, France, who was not involved in the study. One challenge with tracking the cells' origin is that blood cells can migrate within the organism quite literally in a heartbeat, said linkurl:Timm Schroeder;http://www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/neu/isf/ag2_intro_en.php of the GSF-Institute of Stem Cell Research in Neuherberg, Germany, the study's main author. "The problem is that...
The video shows cells with clear endothelial morphology shown giving rise to blood cells. Left panel: phase contrast. Right panel: fluorescence detecting Histone 2B-Venues expression. 1st pause in video: single mesodermal cell starting the colony. 2nd pause: all cells in the colony exhibit a clear endothelial sheet morphology. 3rd pause: some cells lose tight integration into the endothelial sheet but keep adhering to endothelial cells. 4th pause: Blood cells detach and are free-floating. The arrow is following the starting cell and one daughter cell after each cell division until the end of the video.
Timescale: days -- hours:minutes:secondsNature
Timescale: days -- hours:minutes:secondsNature
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