The mechanics of tissue morphogenesis

Abstract

Cells and tissues display remarkable robustness, i.e., the ability to keep a polarized or vectorial organization, important for their physiological role. Meanwhile epithelia show tremendous plasticity, during embryonic development and organ regeneration, i.e., the capacity to adapt to intrinsic or extrinsic signals or perturbations. We are interested in deciphering basic principles of cell and tissue organization and dynamics with a special focus on the problem of how robustness and plasticity are jointly regulated. The main problem I will discuss is an example of tissue plasticity manifested in embryonic tissues. I will present our current research characterizing how the spatial distribution of tension in cells controls locally stereotyped cell shape changes and how these in turn are coordinated at the tissue level to produce tissue morphogenesis. The presentation will delineate (1) spatio-temporal patterns in cell dynamics driving tissue morphogenesis; (2) the subcellular force-generating systems driving these kinematic patterns; (3) how tension transmission affects this process. We will discuss how fluctuations in contractile activity are spatially organized to yield robust and reproducible symmetry-breaking in cell dynamics. The underlying theme will be to understand how tissue-level dynamics emerges from subcellular mechanics. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.