Vinay Ayyappan

@hugheslabpenn.bsky.social thank you so much!!! It’s been beyond a joy to work on it

16.07.2025 09:17 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Single-cell spatial mapping reveals reproducible cell type organization and spatially-dependent gene expression in gastruloids Gastruloids are three-dimensional stem-cell-based models that recapitulate key aspects of mammalian gastrulation, including formation of an anterior-posterior (AP) axis. However, we do not have detail...

[8/8] Huge thanks to all co-authors and the lab from whom I’ve learned so much, @arjunraj.bsky.social for so much mentorship and support. Particular shoutout to Cat, whose preprint also dropped. It’s amazing and everybody should check it out: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

15.07.2025 15:44 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

[7/8] We think morphogen signaling partly governs how clones partition tasks in gastruloid development. Adding Retinoic Acid to chimeric gastruloids caused clones to mix together, and inhibiting Nodal signaling disrupted propensity, even though clones stayed separated from one another.

15.07.2025 15:44 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

[6/8] We integrated our lineage-tracing with spatial transcriptomics. Pure-clone gastruloids poorly organize marker gene expression. Combined-clone gastruloids have marker gene expression that is more comparably organized to bulk gastruloids.

15.07.2025 15:44 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

[5/8] Instead of each clone trying to form all tissue types, biased clones focus on what they do best, and together they collectively organize more accurately than any individual clone could achieve alone.

15.07.2025 15:44 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

[4/8] We think this is a form of “division of labor” among biased clones, which specialize in forming certain tissues. Kinda like Adam Smith’s example of workers in a pin factory. Every worker CAN do any task, but is better at some than others. Divvying-up the work boosts output.

15.07.2025 15:44 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

[3/8] Mixing clones together also helps gastruloids elongate properly, and again, each clone takes its preferred spot along the anterior-posterior axis, effectively partitioning the job of making the gastruloid among themselves.

15.07.2025 15:44 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

[2/8] Every clone has a preferred location in the chimeric gastruloid. Some have a propensity for the anterior, some for the posterior. Here, that propensity held in nearly every gastruloid over several rounds of aggregation.

15.07.2025 15:44 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

[1/8] We used a fluorescence-based lineage tracing approach to track individual clones in a polyclonal aggregate. Pure clones are worse at forming gastruloids. But crazily enough, if you mix them with the original bulk population, they do great!

15.07.2025 15:44 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Gastruloid patterning reflects division of labor among biased stem cell clones Embryonic development typically requires precise coordination among cells to achieve reproducible outcomes, leading to the assumption that cellular heterogeneity must be minimized or buffered against....

[0/8] Stoked to share our work with @arjunraj.bsky.social on tissue organization in the gastruloid. We use lineage tracing and spatial transcriptomics to show that diversity among stem cell clones promotes, rather than hinders, gastruloid development: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

15.07.2025 15:44 — 👍 26    🔁 9    💬 1    📌 3

Excellent work indeed, but I feel in this context @adrianobolondi.bsky.social fantastic work should also be mentioned www.cell.com/developmenta...

15.07.2025 13:58 — 👍 9    🔁 6    💬 0    📌 0

Two new preprints from the @arjunraj.bsky.social‬ on #gastruloids. Both excellent. Exploring the relationship between macroscopic reproducibility v microscopic heterogeneity. Stunning experiments and much to think about
biorxiv.org/content/earl...
biorxiv.org/content/earl...

15.07.2025 13:28 — 👍 41    🔁 15    💬 1    📌 1