Chinese scientists have unveiled a groundbreaking 3D map of the fruit fly’s entire life cycle, providing unprecedented insights into biological development at the molecular level.
The collaborative study between BGI Research in Hangzhou and the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen offers a comprehensive look at how genes and cells interact over time and space during development. The research has been published in the journal Cell.
Using the fruit fly—a widely studied model organism—the team captured the developmental process through its four distinct stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Scientists liken this progression to a meticulously staged theater production, where each cell’s entrance, position, and transformation are directed by genetic scripts.
Employing advanced technologies, the researchers conducted intensive sampling of fruit fly embryos at 30-minute to two-hour intervals, as well as systematic sampling during key larval and pupal stages. This approach generated a massive dataset of over 3.8 million spatially resolved single-cell transcriptomes.
With the help of Spateo, an algorithmic tool for spatiotemporal analysis, the team reconstructed a high-resolution 3D model that maps the spatial dynamics of tissue morphology and gene expression. This allowed them to build a differentiation trajectory map, revealing the fundamental molecular mechanisms that determine how cells specialize.
“Cells from different germ layers follow distinct differentiation paths,” explained Wang Mingyue, co-first author of the study. “Transcription factors act as ‘cellular directors,’ orchestrating differentiation by activating or repressing genes to assign specific roles to cells.”
The team identified several previously unknown transcription factors that may play critical roles in the development of the nervous system, gut, and endocrine system.
Since approximately 70 percent of human disease-related genes have counterparts in fruit flies, this research provides a valuable reference for studying human developmental diseases and opens new avenues for biomedical research, Wang noted.
