Figure 1. Intravital lineage tracing of Lgr5⁺ cells.

a, Cartoon showing a mouse carrying an abdominal imaging window (AIW) to visualize intestinal Lgr5⁺ CBC cells and their Confetti progeny over multiple imaging sessions. b, Lateral projection of a Z-stack and representative XY-images of a crypt at indicated Z-stack positions. The stem cell niche (Z0-13) is defined by Lgr5-GFP fluorescence. The relative position of CBC cells to the most basal cell (row 0) determines location in the central (row 0 to +2, which translates to Z0-6) or border region (row +3 to +4, which translates to Z7-13) of the stem cell niche. Scale bar, 20 μm. c-f, Intravital lineage tracing of RFP-expressing Lgr5⁺ CBC cells located at the centre (c,d) and border (e,f) region. Grey lines indicate crypts, white lines indicate Confetti clones. (d,f) Graphs show time evolution of spatial organization of Confetti clones starting 3 days post-induction. Clone size is divided in central (light green) and border (dark green) CBC cells. Asterisk indicates clones in which all progeny were lost. Scale bar, 20 μm.