Thank you!

Thank you!

If you’re interested in liver regeneration, cholangiocyte biology, or cell fate plasticity, we’d love to hear your thoughts!

#LiverRegeneration #Zebrafish #RegenerativeBiology #CellPlasticity
(8/8)

🙏 Funded by FNRS and DBTIndia, whose support was essential.
🐟 This study also highlights the power of #zebrafish as a model for dynamic cell plasticity and #regeneration.
🔗 Full paper: nature.com/articles/s41...
🔗 Lab: sumeetpalsingh.github.io
(7/8)

Huge thanks to our team:
👏 Lead author Sema Elif Eski

👏 Co-authors @jiaruimi.bsky.social Macarena Pozo Morales, Garnik Hovhannisyan
👏 Collaborators @o-andersson-lab.bsky.social Esteban Gurzov, Rita Manco, Federico Marini

(6/8)

This reveals that cholangiocyte plasticity is not just a backup plan, but an active, physiological response during liver growth and moderate injury.

A new paradigm: transdifferentiation can occur without senescence, fibrosis, or chronic damage.
(5/8)

Surprisingly, de novo hepatocytes emerged even when spared ones were present—a key deviation from the idea that cholangiocytes only activate after massive hepatocyte loss.

We confirmed this with a 17% partial hepatectomy model. ✂️🐟
(4/8)

Enter CellCousin: a new zebrafish tool we designed to trace liver regeneration.

🟢 Spared hepatocytes
🔴 Ablated hepatocytes
🔵 De novo hepatocytes (not hepatocytes before injury)
This lets us precisely map where new hepatocytes come from after injury.
(3/8)

The liver can regenerate itself—a fact known since the myth of Prometheus.
But when hepatocytes are damaged, can cholangiocytes step in to rebuild the liver even if some hepatocytes remain?
We built a new zebrafish model to test it.
(2/8)

Huge thanks to the team and funding support FNRS, DBTIndia that made this happen 🙌
We hope CellCousin2 helps others studying regeneration, cell fate, and tissue repair.
All plasmids are available on @addgene.bsky.social

How does DDCreER work?
We fused CreER to a destabilizing domain (DD) that is degraded unless stabilized by TMP.
💊 TMP = protein stabilization
🟣 4-OHT = nuclear translocation
Only when both are present does recombination occur—ensuring tight temporal control.

What’s new in CellCousin2?
✅ DDCreER: chemically inducible Cre with low leakiness
✅ NTR2.0: ablation with 10× less metronidazole
✅ Cleaner, more precise regeneration readouts
The system is modular and adaptable to other tissues or models.

What is CellCousin?
It uses stochastic recombination and NTR-based ablation to remove only a subset of hepatocytes.
🟢 Spared cells
🔵 New (De novo) hepatocytes
This allows direct comparison of lineage contributions during liver repair.

Fantastic! Is it available from Etsy or another vendor?

Thank you Jiarui!

Amazing!