Adult tissue-specific stem cell interaction: novel technologies and research advances

Adult tissue-specific stem cells play a dominant role in tissue homeostasis and regeneration. Various in vivo markers of adult tissue-specific stem cells have been increasingly reported by lineage tracing in genetic mouse models, indicating that marked cells differentiation is crucial during homeostasis and regeneration. How adult tissue-specific stem cells with indicated markers contact the adjacent lineage with indicated markers is of significance to be studied. Novel methods bring future findings. Recent advances in lineage tracing, synthetic receptor systems, proximity labeling, and transcriptomics have enabled easier and more accurate cell behavior visualization and qualitative and quantitative analysis of cell-cell interactions than ever before. These technological innovations have prompted researchers to re-evaluate previous experimental results, providing increasingly compelling experimental results for understanding the mechanisms of cell-cell interactions. This review aimed to describe the recent methodological advances of dual enzyme lineage tracing system, the synthetic receptor system, proximity labeling, single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics in the study of adult tissue-specific stem cells interactions. An enhanced understanding of the mechanisms of adult tissue-specific stem cells interaction is important for tissue regeneration and maintenance of homeostasis in organisms.