Universality of clone dynamics during tissue development

Lineage tracing studies based on transgenic animal models have led to advances in our understanding of cellular identity, hierarchy and function. They provide insights into the development, maintenance and regeneration of tissues, and factors leading to dysregulation in diseased states. However, large-scale cell rearrangements, particularly in growing tissues may render the retrospective analysis of lineages highly problematic. Drawing on studies of heart development, we show how such effects may lead to the emergence of universal scaling distributions. By mapping the problem of clonal evolution onto the theory of aerosols, we elucidate the origin and range of possible scaling behaviors. In generalizing our studies to other tissue types and contexts, we show how the identification of universal scaling dependences allows biological information on cell fate behavior to be distilled.