Hydra morphogenesis as phase-transition dynamics
Abstract
We utilize whole-body Hydra regeneration from a small tissue segment to develop a physics framework for animal morphogenesis. Introducing experimental controls over this process, an external electric field and a drug that blocks gap junctions, allows us to characterize the essential step in the morphological transition - from a spherical shape to an elongated spheroid. We find that spatial fluctuations of the Ca2+ distribution in the Hydra's tissue drive this transition and construct a field-theoretic model that explains the morphological transition as a first-order-like phase transition resulting from the coupling of the Ca2+ field and the tissue's local curvature. Various predictions of this model are verified experimentally.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2304.01801,
title = {Hydra morphogenesis as phase-transition dynamics},
author = {Oded Agam and Erez Braun},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.01801},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
8 pages, 4 figures, Supplementary Material