ArticleCell2017
A Unifying Theory of Branching Morphogenesis.
Article in Cell, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 98 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
98 citing papers in PubMed, 190 citations in OpenAlex.
- TGFβ determines epithelial tissue spacing by regulating mesenchymal condensation.Cell reports · 2026Article
- Temporal Topology Provides an Interpretable Framework for Neuronal Morphogenesis.Neuroinformatics · 2026Article
- Application of a uniaxial force by pulling the skin around the mammary gland may affect the orientation of the ducts and the length of the mammary ductal network: Findings from computational modeling and laboratory experiments.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Article
- TGFβ determines epithelial tissue spacing by regulating mesenchymal condensation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Optimality as a framework for understanding developmental robustness.Trends in cell biology · 2026Review
- Extracellular Matrix Viscoelasticity Regulates Mammary Branching Morphogenesis.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Morphometric profiling and EphB2/B4 and ephrin-B1 membrane protein expression analysis in vesicular, bulbourethral, and preputial glands in mice.Journal of advanced veterinary and animal research · 2026Article
- Spatially Discontinuous Mutation Topographies in Ductal Carcinoma In Situ Reveal Noncompetitive Growth Dynamics.Cancer research · 2025Article
- Contractile fibroblasts form a transient niche for the branching mammary epithelium.Nature communications · 2025Article
- MaGNet: A Network-Based Method for Quantitative Analysis of the Mammary Ductal Tree in Developing Female Mice.Journal of mammary gland biology and neoplasia · 2025Article
- Neurons exploit stochastic growth to rapidly and economically build dense dendritic arbors.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Morphogenesis of Fractofusus andersoni and the nature of early animal development.Nature communications · 2025Article
- 4D pathology: translating dynamic epithelial tubulogenesis to prostate cancer pathology.Histopathology · 2025Review
- The Mechanics of Building Functional Organs.Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology · 2025Review
- The lives of cells, recorded.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2025Review
- A travelling-wave strategy for plant-fungal trade.Nature · 2025Article
- Structure, motion, and multiscale search of traveling networks.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Convective stability of the critical waves of an FKPP-type model for self-organized growth.Journal of mathematical biology · 2025Article
- Embryonic Mammary Gland Morphogenesis.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2025Review
38 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The morphogenesis of branched organs remains a subject of abiding interest. Although much is known about the underlying signaling pathways, it remains unclear how macroscopic features of branched organs, including their size, network topology, and spatial patterning, are encoded. Here, we show that, in mouse mammary gland, kidney, and human prostate, these features can be explained quantitatively within a single unifying framework of branching and annihilating random walks. Based on quantitative analyses of large-scale organ reconstructions and proliferation kinetics measurements, we propose that morphogenesis follows from the proliferative activity of equipotent tips that stochastically branch and randomly explore their environment but compete neutrally for space, becoming proliferatively inactive when in proximity with neighboring ducts. These results show that complex branched epithelial structures develop as a self-organized process, reliant upon a strikingly simple but generic rule, without recourse to a rigid and deterministic sequence of genetically programmed events.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.