Heterogeneity and stochastic growth regulation of biliary epithelial cells dictate dynamic epithelial tissue remodeling

Dynamic remodeling of the intrahepatic biliary epithelial tissue plays key roles in liver regeneration, yet the cellular basis for this process remains unclear. We took an unbiased approach based on in vivo clonal labeling and tracking of biliary epithelial cells in the three-dimensional landscape, in combination with mathematical simulation, to understand their mode of proliferation in a mouse liver injury model where the nascent biliary structure formed in a tissue-intrinsic manner. An apparent heterogeneity among biliary epithelial cells was observed: whereas most of the responders that entered the cell cycle upon injury exhibited a limited and tapering growth potential, a select population continued to proliferate, making a major contribution in sustaining the biliary expansion. Our study has highlighted a unique mode of epithelial tissue dynamics, which depends not on a hierarchical system driven by fixated stem cells, but rather, on a stochastically maintained progenitor population with persistent proliferative activity. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.15034.001

• Publication year

  2016

• Venue

  eLife

• Publication date

  2016-07-19

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.7554/eLife.15034PMID 27431614PMCID 4951195
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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