Single-cell morphodynamics predict cell fate decisions during mucociliary epithelial differentiation (opens in new tab)

Cell state transitions underlie the emergence of diverse cell types and are traditionally defined by changes in gene expression. Yet these transitions also involve coordinated shifts in cell morphology and behavior, which remain poorly characterized in densely packed epithelia. We developed a quantitative live-imaging and computational framework to track thousands of individual cells over time in the rapidly differentiating Xenopus mucociliary epithelium (MCE). From segmentations and trajecto...