Related papers: Blastocoel morphogenesis: a biophysics perspective
We study the self-assembly of colloidal microgel particles at a quasi-two-dimensional air-water interface of a drying droplet. Using bright-field microscopy, we demonstrate that increasing particle elasticity drives interfacial organization…
Shape transformations of epithelial tissues in three dimensions, which are crucial for embryonic development or in vitro organoid growth, can result from active forces generated within the cytoskeleton of the epithelial cells. How the…
A recent experiment on zebrafish blastoderm morphogenesis showed that the viscosity ({\eta}) of a non-confluent embryonic tissue grows sharply until a critical cell packing fraction ({\phi}S). The increase in {\eta} up to {\phi}S is similar…
Morphogenesis, the process by which an adult organism emerges from a single cell, has fascinated humans for a long time. Modelling this process can provide novel insights into development and the principles that orchestrate the…
Mathematical models have recently been used to cast doubt on the biotic origin of stromatolites. Here by contrast we propose a biotic model for stromatolite morphogenesis which considers the relationship between upward growth of a…
Morphogen gradients play an essential role in the spatial regulation of cell patterning during early development. The classical mechanism of morphogen gradient formation involves the diffusion of morphogens away from a localized source…
A central question in developmental biology is how size and position are determined. The genetic code carries instructions on how to control these properties in order to regulate the pattern and morphology of structures in the developing…
In silico, cell based approaches for modeling biological morphogenesis are used to test and validate our understanding of the biological and mechanical process that are at work during the growth and the organization of multi-cell tissues.…
During embryonic development tissue morphogenesis and signaling are tightly coupled. It is therefore important to simulate both tissue morphogenesis and signaling simultaneously in in silico models of developmental processes. The resolution…
Embryology has long played a foundational role in shaping our scientific understanding of animal evolution. In recent decades, growing evidence has also highlighted its role in cancer. Despite the indisputable similarities between embryonic…
A curious feature of organ and organoid morphogenesis is that in certain cases, spatial oscillations in the thickness of the growing "film" are out-of-phase with the deformation of the slower-growing "substrate," while in other cases, the…
Through extensive studies of dynamical system modeling cellular growth and reproduction, we find evidence that complexity arises in multicellular organisms naturally through evolution. Without any elaborate control mechanism, these systems…
Experiments of in vitro formation of blood vessels show that cells randomly spread on a gel matrix autonomously organize to form a connected vascular network. We propose a simple model which reproduces many features of the biological…
We study the morphology of a fluid membrane in spherical confinement. When the area of the membrane is slightly larger than the area of the outer container, a single axisymmetric invagination is observed. For higher area, self-contact…
A common developmental process, called branching morphogenesis, generates the epithelial trees in a variety of organs, including the lungs, kidneys, and glands. How branching morphogenesis can create epithelial architectures of very…
During the life of animals, epithelial tissues undergo extensive deformations--first to form organs during embryogensis and later to preserve integrity and function in adulthood. To what extent these deformations resemble that of non-living…
Understanding cell fate patterning and morphogenesis in the mammalian embryo remains a formidable challenge. Recently, in vivo models based on embryonic stem cells (ESCs) have emerged as complementary methods to quantitatively dissect the…
Luminogenesis, the formation of a fluid-filled cavity (lumen), is an essential process in early mammalian embryonic development, coinciding with the second cell-fate decision that differentiates the inner-cell-mass (ICM) into epiblast (EPI)…
Successful biological development via spatial regulation of cell differentiation relies on action of multiple signaling molecules that are known as morphogens. It is now well established that signaling molecules create non-uniform…
We study how the encasement of a growing elastic bulk within a possibly differently growing elastic coat may induce mechanical instabilities in the equilibrium shape of the combined body. The inhomogeneities induced in an incompressible…