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

每一个有机体都是由各种器官组成的，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，这仍然是一个备受争议的问题。Plachta小组最近开发了新的成像工具来研究活小鼠胚胎中基因调控蛋白的移动性。通过使用这些工具，我们发现，对不同细胞命运的形成至关重要的不是这些调节蛋白的数量，而是它们的运动。我提出的项目目的是进一步了解活体小鼠胚胎细胞命运决定的分子机制和重要调控蛋白的鉴定。总之，更好地理解各种器官是如何在早期胚胎中决定的，将有助于开发新的策略来修复疾病条件下的成年器官。

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.