Peek inside this mouse kidney and watch a bunch of cells turn into an organ. Captured by Nils Lindstrom from the University of Edinburgh, UK, this video reveals how cells are instructed to branch out like a tree to form the kidney’s internal plumbing.
By analysing time-lapse images, Lindstrom and his team discovered that a protein called beta-catenin manages the organ’s development by ordering cells to form winding tubes called nephrons. These produce urine by filtering waste from blood.
In the video, yellow areas show where the protein is most active. The amount of activity seems to determine which part of the structure the cells should form. The researchers found that they could alter which part of the nephron grew where by tweaking the activity of the protein.