Global morphogenetic flow is accurately predicted by the spatial distribution of myosin motors

During embryogenesis tissue layers undergo morphogenetic flow rearranging and folding into specific shapes. While developmental biology has identified key genes and local cellular processes, global coordination of tissue remodeling at the organ scale remains unclear. Here, we combine light-sheet mic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:eLife 2018-02, Vol.7
Main Authors: Streichan, Sebastian J, Lefebvre, Matthew F, Noll, Nicholas, Wieschaus, Eric F, Shraiman, Boris I
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
biophysics
Computational and Systems Biology
Developmental biology
Drosophila
Embryogenesis
Gastrulation
Hypotheses
Insects
Mechanics
morphogenesis
Myosin
Physics
Physics of Living Systems
Quantitative analysis
Spatial distribution
tissue mechanics
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Summary:During embryogenesis tissue layers undergo morphogenetic flow rearranging and folding into specific shapes. While developmental biology has identified key genes and local cellular processes, global coordination of tissue remodeling at the organ scale remains unclear. Here, we combine light-sheet microscopy of the embryo with quantitative analysis and physical modeling to relate cellular flow with the patterns of force generation during the gastrulation process. We find that the complex spatio-temporal flow pattern can be predicted from the measured meso-scale myosin density and anisotropy using a simple, effective viscous model of the tissue, achieving close to 90% accuracy with one time dependent and two constant parameters. Our analysis uncovers the importance of a) spatial modulation of myosin distribution on the scale of the embryo and b) the non-locality of its effect due to mechanical interaction of cells, demonstrating the need for the global perspective in the study of morphogenetic flow.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/elife.27454