Endothelio-hematopoietic relationship: getting closer to the beginnings

Abstract

The close association between hematopoietic and endothelial cells during embryonic development led to the proposal that they may originate from a common ancestor - the hemangioblast. Due to a lack of unique specific markers for in vivo cell fate tracking studies, evidence supporting this theory derives mainly from in vitro differentiation studies. Teixeira and colleagues describe a novel enhancer that drives specific eGFP expression in blood islands of the electroporated chick embryo, thereby presenting a tool potentially suitable for analysis of hemangioblast differentiation and development of blood islands.See research article: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-213X/11/76 . © 2011 Gordon-Keylock and Medvinsky; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.