Elucidating cell physical properties that determine the rate and directionality of cell rearrangement

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K15125
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Developmental biology
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: Sugimura Kaoru 京都大学, 高等研究院, 特定拠点准教授 (50466033)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 力学 / 組織形態形成 / 細胞配置換え / 統計推定

Outline of Final Research Achievements

To understand how tissue shape is determined during morphogenesis, it is critical to uncover how cell mechanics tune morphogenetic cell processes, including cell rearrangement. The Cell Vertex model (CVM) has been widely used to address this question. Previous studies, however, mostly relied on summary statistics when evaluating model parameters from in vivo data. Here, we developed a new method to infer CVM parameters from the image data of epithelial tissue. This method estimates model equations and parameters based on an observed relationship between cell geometry and forces, namely, cell junction tension and cell pressures. We showed that the accuracy of inference was greatly improved compared with previous methods. Next, we used our method to identify a link between mechanical parameters and cell rearrangement in Drosophila. Our data suggest that the anisotropy of a negative spring constant of the cell junction governs the speed and directionality of the cell rearrangement.

Free Research Field

発生生物学、生物物理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

CVMは組織力学分野で最も広く用いられている理論モデルの一つである。本研究で開発した手法は、多角形分布などの要約統計量を利用する既存手法よりも格段に精度高く、CVMのパラメータを推定でき、細胞配置換えに留まらず、多様な個体発生現象を力学的に解析する際の有用なツールになる可能性がある。加えて、本研究は、上皮組織により10倍以上も異なることがあるにも関わらず、ほとんど研究されてこなかった細胞配置換え速度の制御機構解明の第一歩となりうるものであり、今後の研究の発展が期待される。