Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Mutation fingerprints encode cellular histories

Cells continually acquire mutations and pass them on to their progeny. The mutation profiles of human cells shine a light on the cells’ developmental history and their dynamics in adult tissue.
  1. Kamila Naxerova

    1. Kamila Naxerova is at the Center for Systems Biology, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

The human body consists of trillions of cells that perform innumerable tasks as members of different organ systems. They are all descendants of the fertilized egg, which divides again and again to generate large numbers of progeny during embryonic development. Later in life, cells continue dividing to compensate for cell death and to ensure consistent tissue function. The ancestral relationships between the body’s cells can inform us about their division and migration histories. Writing in Nature, Park et al.1, Coorens et al.2, Li et al.3 and Moore et al.4 provide insights into human embryonic development and tissue maintenance by uncovering the lineage relationships between cells that reside in different parts of the body.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 597, 334-336 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02269-0

References

  1. Park, S. et al. Nature 597, 393–397 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Coorens, T H. H. et al. Nature 597, 387–392 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Li, R. et al. Nature 597, 398–403 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Moore, L. et al. Nature 597, 381–386 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Bizzotto, S. et al. Science 371, 1249–1253 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Ju, Y. S. et al. Nature 543, 714–718 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Spencer Chapman, M. et al. Nature 595, 85–90 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Martincorena, I. et al. Science 348, 880–886 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Zhu, M., Lu, T., Yopp, A. C., Wang, T. & Zhu, H. Cell 177, 608–621 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Colom, B. et al. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.25.449880 (2021).

  11. Yoshida, K. et al. Nature 578, 266–272 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Campbell, P. J. et al. Nature 578, 82–93 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links