A Biosensor for the Mitotic Kinase MPS1 Reveals Spatiotemporal Activity Dynamics and Regulation Highlights d Development of a FRET-based biosensor of MPS1 kinase activity d Active MPS1 detected at centromeres and chromatin is derived from kinetochores d MPS1 activity is initiated 12 min before NEB in a PP2A-B56dependent manner d Colon cancer cell lines and organoids have lower MPS1 activity than healthy lines

Despite striking parallels between the fields of developmental biology and adult tissue homeostasis, these are disconnected in contemporary research. Although development describes tissue generation and homeostasis describes tissue maintenance, it is the balance between stem cell proliferation and differentiation that coordinates both processes. Upstream signalling regulates this balance to achieve the required outcome at the population level. Both development and homeostasis require tight regulation of stem cells at the single-cell level and establishment of patterns at the tissue-wide level. Here, we emphasize that the general principles of embryonic development and tissue homeostasis are similar, and argue that interactions between these disciplines will be beneficial for both research fields.

Cells use different languages to communicate with each other, while they can also vary the volume or duration of these signals to send information, which ultimately affects the fate and behaviour of cells. We spoke to Dr Katharina Sonnen and Sonja Weterings about their work in using new technologies to investigate how cells talk to each other, which could open up new therapeutics avenues in future.