•Scientists have reconstructed the cell lineage of an embryonic mouse. The researchers recorded the formation of cells over a 13.5-day period, from the moment the fertilized egg is divided until the formation of the body and organs is complete (in mice, the full gestation period 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 observing how the early lineage of cells in the embryo influences what these cells will 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, genetic diseases, or cancer,” said Dr. Jay Shendure, professor of genomics at the University of Washington School of Medicine and a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Together with Chengxiang Qiu, he is one of the co-authors of the Science paper. Qiu works as a molecular and systems biologist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
Recording the cell history in DNA
The 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; it acts 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, one of the study’s first authors, 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, it prints a single new character on the next blank line—always in order, without ever writing over what was already written. Because the characters are always filled in sequentially, that line itself reveals the cell’s history of division.”
“DNA Typewriter avoids all of these,” said Kim. “It writes DNA without completely cutting it, maintaining a relatively stable pattern and writing everything in a precise order, so we can record cell lineages at much higher resolution and for a much longer period of time.”
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 the scientific director. Shendure is also the scientific director of the UW Medicine Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine and the Allen Cell Tracking Institute.
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