Figure 6

Somatic cell trees. A: A niche somatic cell tree. Starting from the zygote, millions of related cells create an intestine. Within each crypt are multiple stem cells (a niche with four stem cells is illustrated). With age, branches become longer reflecting more divisions since birth. Most niche stem cell lineages are lost (dotted lines) from random stem cell loss with replacement, which continuously creates newer more recent common crypt ancestors (circles). Such common crypt ancestors are stem cells because all current crypt cells are progeny of such cells. Any one of the four current niche stem cells may become a common ancestor, but only one will. In this way, crypts can appear to have both a single stem cell (most recent common crypt ancestor) and multiple potential stem cells. A villus tree (red lines in bottom tree) has essentially the same age as the crypt tree (same number of divisions since birth) but villi should exhibit more diversity than crypts because villus cells have older most recent common ancestors. B: Somatic cell tree with immortal stem cell lineages. Stem cells always divide asymmetrically and their lineages never become extinct. Unlike a niche somatic cell tree, branches are never lost or "pruned".