Shroyer Lab

Research Figure

Figure 1. Model for intestinal epithelial differentiation. (Left) A cartoon drawing of a crypt and adjoining villus epithelium is shown. (Right) A diagram detailing the cellular and molecular events in epithelial differentiation. Enteroendocrine, Paneth, goblet, and absorptive enterocytes are indicated by name. Self-renewing stem cells, shown in red, are located near the base of the crypt and show nuclear localization of  -catenin. Stem cells produce highly proliferating multipotent progenitors, which employ Notch signaling to select Hes1-expressing cells versus Math1-expressing cells. Hes1-expressing cells (gray) go on to differentiate into absorptive enterocytes (white), which constitute the majority of the mature epithelium. Math1-expressing cells (orange) constitute the secretory progenitors. These cells subsequently coexpress Gfi1 (purple), which functions to select between goblet/Paneth progenitors (green) and enteroendocrine precursors (brown). Enteroendocrine precursors express Ngn3 and Gfi1; Gfi1 continues to be expressed in a subset of mature enteroendocrine cells.