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A gut feeling for cellular fate

A population of progenitor cells in the midgut of fruit flies undergoes differentiation in response to mechanical force. This finding marks the first time that such a phenomenon has been reported in vivo.
  1. Jackson Liang

    1. Jackson Liang is in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

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  2. Lucy Erin O’Brien

    1. Lucy Erin O’Brien is in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

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Over the past decade, advances in bioengineering have led to a new-found appreciation of the effects of mechanical force on stem cells. Micrometre-scale culture systems that can subject cells to highly specific physical deformations have allowed researchers to demonstrate that force can modulate stem-cell behaviours, and even prime stem cells for therapeutic transplantation1,2. However, even the most advanced culture systems merely approximate the complex and dynamic forces that stem cells experience in their native tissues. In a paper in Nature, He et al.3 combine sophisticated genetic approaches and innovative physical manipulations to investigate the role of force on stem cells in vivo. They make the striking discovery that mechanical force drives the differentiation of a specialized population of progenitor cells in the midgut of adult fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster).

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Nature 555, 34-36 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-01460-0

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