The new technology unlocks cellular ancestry with DNA bar codes

A historical study of Wehi’s scientists has highlighted one of the most fundamental mysteries of biology: how cells are divided and develop in the complex structures that make up our body.

The study produced a new sophisticated and main technology for monitoring cells very early during the development of embryos, because they divide, migrate and specialize in the organs, tissues and systems that keep us alive.

Innovative technology, called Loxcode, provides each cell in a genetically modified mouse with one of the billions of individual DNA bar codes, which allows them to be followed in unprecedented details.

Published in CellResearch opens up new borders to scientists around the world to better understand how we grow, healing and fighting infections.

At a glance

• The researchers have developed a new sophisticated way of following the cells from a few days after the design and to trace their line as they divide and grow to create the tissues, organs and systems of our body.

• The Loxcode technology developed by a Wehi team uses a process as mixing a card game, but in terms of DNA, to create billions of individual bar codes that allow you to follow cells in detail never possible.

• Innovative technology is already exploited by researchers from around the world.

  
  

The plan of life emerges earlier than we thought before

It is incredible to contemplate that each human begins from a single founding cell, called Zygote.

From this founder, specialized cells are formed, building everything, from our skin and our brain to our blood and our bones. Exactly how cells decide what it takes – and how they have long been linked – has long been a scientific mystery.

Determine which cells will become important not only to understand normal development, but also to identify when and why things go wrong, which leads to diseases and disorders.

The principal researcher, Professor Shalin Naik, said that new technology, which is already used in many laboratories in the world, allows scientists to retrace the ultimate destiny of cells very early during the development of embryos.

“When life is a ball of a few hundred cells, we discovered that certain cells could individually give birth to all the tissues of the body, while others were already intended to become a certain type of fabric, such as the brain, the intestine, the members or the blood,” said Professor Naik, a Wehi laboratory head.

“What excites me the most is the explosion of research that Loxcode allows – it is not every day that you create a widely used tool which has the power to transform what we understand about the functioning of our body, at the deepest level.”

The main author of the study and inventor of Loxcode, Dr. Tom Weber, said that technology was like mixing and distributing a card game, but at DNA level.

With Loxcode, each cell is treated a single hand which is inherited by its descendants who form the organism. This creates a traceable barcode, allowing us to look inside this fundamental process with unprecedented details. “”

Dr Tom Weber, principal of the study and inventor of Loxcode

Towards better treatments by analyzing cellular ancestors

By allowing cells to be retraced to their ancestors cells, Loxcode points to a future where the first roots of developmental disorders can be discovered.

As part of the study, the research team has developed a genetically modified mouse model which allows cells to be bar coded and analyzed via an easily available DNA sequencing technology.

LOXCODE will change the situation for biomedical and developmental research, capable of generating up to 30 billion random DNA bar codes on demand inside the tissues of a living mouse – tens of thousands of times more than existing technologies.

Many projects in the world are currently using the model to study a wide range of research issues, brain development and the behavior of immune cells, to the way organs come together and tissues regenerate after a stroke.

Dr. Weber applied his knowledge of physics, synthetic biology and mathematics to optimize the design of the Loxcode sequence, which creates a diversity of more than 30 billion bar codes from only 13 small DNA pieces.

“LOXCODE is essentially an DNA ancestry test for each cell, in all the tissues of the mouse, which allows researchers to study and to untangle some of the greatest mysteries of life,” he said.