Intestinal stem cells count to eight divisions to maintain cell ratios

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29 July 2026 Intestinal stem cells count to eight divisions to maintain cell ratios In the fly gut, stem cells keep the balance of cell types by undergoing eight rounds of cell division to form absorptive cells, then one round to form secretory cells. By Joaquín de Navascués ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5414-4056 0 Joaquín de Navascués Joaquín de Navascués is in the School of Life Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK. View author publications PubMed Google Scholar

Long-term maintenance of a tissue depends on the upkeep of its cellular populations, which can comprise various functional cell types. In many organs in adults, this responsibility falls on stem cells, which divide to maintain their own numbers while giving rise to the appropriate proportion of specialized cell types1,2. The logic underlying their ability to differentiate into one cell type or another is unknown for most tissues. Do stem cells depend on external feedback to know the tissue’s current cell-type needs? Or do they have an intrinsic capacity to produce cell types in fixed ratios? If the latter, are proportions maintained through random dice rolls (probabilistic), or do they somehow keep a tally (deterministic)? Writing in Nature, Tong et al.3 approach this problem using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-02128-w

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Competing Interests The author declares no competing interests.

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