The adult intestine, in particular, is a hub of constant cellular renewal, where stem cells depend on Wnts released from nearby support cells to specialize into the gut lining. Because Wnts are water-repelling and sticky, how they reach stem cells when needed has been a mystery. The telocytes stretched long telopodes, branching into finer filopodia that wrapped around the organoids and touched individual stem cells. The researchers noticed that the internal “tracks” ferrying Wnt-filled vesicles and the junctions between telocytes and stem cells resembled the way neurons transmit signals at synapses. —Source: Duke-NUS Medical School ; Image: ShutterstockThis article can be found at Telocytes deliver essential Wnts directly to murine intestinal stem cells via synapse-like contacts.