Spatial mapping reveals how human urogenital organs codevelop during organogenesis

A new study has mapped human urogenital development in its native spatial context, revealing how neighboring organs coordinate their development through cellular communication and molecular signaling during embryogenesis. The study, published in Science, was led by Guo Jingtao and Wang Xiaoyan at the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with researchers from Peking University Third Hospital and the Women and Children's Hospital, Qingdao University.

The urinary and reproductive systems share embryonic origins and develop in close physical proximity. During the fourth to fifth weeks, the intermediate mesoderm forms the mesonephros, adrenal primordium and gonadal primordium. Single-cell studies have clarified cell types and developmental trajectories within individual organs.

However, tissue dissociation removes the spatial relationships needed to study communication across organ boundaries. To investigate the coordinated development of the human urogenital system within its native spatial context, the researchers combined high-resolution spatial transcriptomics with single-cell multi-omics, tissue protein imaging and human embryonic stem cell models to analyze male and female human embryos at Carnegie stages 15, 19 and 23.

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