•Scientists have reconstructed the cell lineage of a developing mouse embryo. They tracked the formation of cells from the moment a fertilized egg is divided until the body and organs are fully formed, a 13.5-day process (the full gestation period in mice is between 19 and 21 days). The research results will be published in the journal Science on Thursday, October 8, 2026.
“We are interested in tracking the early lineage of cells in the embryo to see how it influences what these cells become in later stages. Studying cell lineages helps us to understand normal development. Such research could ultimately advance our knowledge of birth defects, neurodevelopmental conditions, genetics, and diseases or cancers,” said Dr. Jay Shendure, professor of genomics at the University of Washington School of Medicine and a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
With Chengxiang Qiu, he is a co-author of the Science paper. Qiu works as a molecular and systems biologist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
Recording the cell history in DNA
Researchers’ latest breakthrough was achieved using a tracking technology called the “DNA Typewriter,” invented by Shendure and Junhong Choi, who works at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
The team inserted a redesigned tape into the genome of a fertilized mouse egg to use its DNA as a recording medium. The redesign makes it easier to read the tape back from the cells. As the cells acquire different characteristics to form the embryo, the DNA Typewriter remains within each cell’s own genetic material, acting like the “tail of a ship” (the ship’s daily record). “Think of it like a real printer, but instead of paper, it writes on a cell’s own DNA,” said Haedong Kim, a postdoctoral scientist in genomics at UW Medicine and also a member of the Seattle Synthetic Biology Center and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “Each time a cell divides, a new character is printed on the next blank line—always in sequence, without ever overwriting what was written before. Because the characters are always filled in sequentially, that line itself reveals the cell’s lineage of divisions.”
“DNA Typewriter avoids all of these,” said Kim. “It writes DNA without completely cutting it, maintaining a relatively stable record and writing everything in a precise order, so we can record cell lineages at much higher resolution and for much longer periods of time.” The researchers tested the recording system in 100 fertilized mouse eggs and obtained 10 embryos for analysis. The recording system clearly came into play in embryo No. 3, which had the richest history, and the scientists focused their analysis on it. Tracking the descendants of the first two cells
Other first authors of the study are Qi Yu and Sophie Seidel, both from the Department of Genomics at the UW School of Medicine and the Seattle Synthetic Biology Center, where Shendure is scientific director. Shendure is also scientific director of the UW Medicine Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine and the Allen Cell Tracking Institute.
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