In vivo model of progressive tumor development in the anorectal transition zone (TZ)

Epithelial junctions are areas of associated pathology in human and mouse. In the case of the anorectal junction there is an abrupt transition from a simple columnar to a stratified squamous epithelium. To identify new regulatory mechanisms during injury and tumorigenesis, we studied this so called anorectal transition zone (TZ) at the single cell level. To this end, we took advantage of a mouse injury model where TZ cells are traced with fluorescent kerating 17 (K17CreER T2 x LSL-EGFP) at different points during transformation. Overall design: Anorectal TZ cells were isolated by Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and analyzed using scRNAseq.