Study finds cells maintain a complete molecular 'memory' of their embryonic origins
Thursday, March 21, 2019 - 10:30
in Biology & Nature
In research that casts cells as curators of their own history, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists have discovered that adult tissues retain a memory, inscribed on their DNA, of the embryonic cells from which they arose. The discovery led to one even more intriguing—that the memory is fully retrievable: under certain conditions, cells can play the story of their development in reverse to switch on genes that were active in the fetal state.