Figure 1

Schematic of a crypt of Lieberkühn and villus. Stem cells probably reside within a niche just above the Paneth cells. Differentiated cells migrate out of the niche and up a villus, and die within a week. Illustrated are an isolated crypt and villus fragments. A cross-section illustrates that the villus fragments were essentially hollow tubes of epithelium. The schematic of stem cell lineages illustrates that cell division is always asymmetric (one stem cell and one differentiated daughter) in immortal stem cell lineages, and predominately asymmetric in a stem cell niche. However, niche symmetric divisions occasionally occurs (yellow region) leading to loss of one lineage and the expansion of another, such that total niche stem cell numbers remain unchanged. In this way, niches allow heterogeneous crypts to become homogenous.