Revealing cell-to-cell variability in the living mammalian embryo by imaging transcription factor dynamics

每一个生物体都由不同的器官组成，而这些器官都是由一个胚胎细胞产生的。细胞分裂导致胚胎的生长。然而，胚胎中最原始的细胞何时以及如何变得彼此不同，以形成不同的器官，这仍然是一个高度争论的问题。Plachta小组最近开发了新的成像工具，用于研究活小鼠胚胎中基因调控蛋白的移动性。使用这些工具导致了这样的发现，而不是这些调节蛋白的数量的运动是至关重要的建立不同的细胞命运。本研究的目的是进一步了解小鼠胚胎细胞命运决定的分子机制，并鉴定重要的调控蛋白。总的来说，更好地了解各种器官在早期胚胎中是如何决定的，将有助于开发在疾病条件下修复成人器官的新策略。

Every organism is composed of various organs which all results from one embryonic cell. Cell division leads to the growing of the embryo. However, it is still highly debated when and how the most primitive cells of the embryo become different from each other in order to form different organs. The Plachta Group recently developed new imaging tools to study the mobility of gene regulatory proteins in live mouse embryos. Using these tools led to the discovery that rather the movement than the amount of such regulatory proteins is crucial for the establishment of different cell fates. The aim of my proposed project is to further understand the molecular mechanism of cell fate determination in living mouse embryos and the identification of important regulatory proteins. Overall, a better understanding how the various organs become determined in the early embryo will help to develop new strategies to repair adult organs under diseases conditions.