Mechanisms determining the identity of intestinal epithelial cells

(ENG) The intestinal epithelium has been heavily studied for decades. It is a traditional model to study the natural renewal of tissue during homeostasis and upon the damage, carcinoma establishment and progression and regulation of stem cells by Wnt signalling. Since the main interest in the tissue is focused on epithelial stem cells, it has been described quite recently that also all differentiated epithelial cells from the small intestine including enterocytes undergo drastic changes in properties during their short life. This phenomenon came to be known as villus zonation. In parallel with that observation, the heterogeneity of intestinal mesenchymal cells and their impact on intestinal epithelium have been gradually revealed. Distinct populations of mesenchymal cells secrete specific signalling molecules, which determine the destiny of epithelial cells. Those signalling molecules regulate stem cell maintenance as well as villus zonation. Our work combines those novel findings of intestinal enterocytes and mesenchymal cells. We studied the effect of distinct Bmp ligands produced by mesenchymal cells on the differentiation of enterocytes. We treated small intestinal epithelial cells with recombinant Bmp proteins in vitro and analysed changes in their gene expression by RNA sequencing. We..