Science (New York, N.Y.)May 28, 2016

Tracking the Development of an Entire Organism Using Combined and Step-by-Step Genome Editing

CRISPR Gene Editing Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Mar 12, 2026

Abstract

Genome editing can generate thousands of lineage-informative barcode alleles for tracing cell lineages.

Distinct mutations can be introduced to a DNA barcode through multiple rounds of cell division.
The editing rates and patterns are adjustable in both cell culture and zebrafish models.
Most cells in adult zebrafish organs originate from a limited number of embryonic progenitor cells.
Future applications of this method could enable comprehensive mapping of cell lineages in complex organisms.

Simplified

Multicellular systems develop from single cells through distinct lineages. However, current lineage-tracing approaches scale poorly to whole, complex organisms. Here, we use genome editing to progressively introduce and accumulate diverse mutations in a DNA barcode over multiple rounds of cell division. The barcode, an array of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 target sites, marks cells and enables the elucidation of lineage relationships via the patterns of mutations shared between cells. In cell culture and zebrafish, we show that rates and patterns of editing are tunable and that thousands of lineage-informative barcode alleles can be generated. By sampling hundreds of thousands of cells from individual zebrafish, we find that most cells in adult organs derive from relatively few embryonic progenitors. In future analyses, genome editing of synthetic target arrays for lineage tracing (GESTALT) can be used to generate large-scale maps of cell lineage in multicellular systems for normal development and disease.

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Tracking the Development of an Entire Organism Using Combined and Step-by-Step Genome Editing

Abstract

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You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

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