Related papers: Precision of morphogen-driven tissue patterning du…
During developmental processes such as embryogenesis, how a group of cells fold into specific structures, is a central question in biology that defines how living organisms form. Establishing tissue-level morphology critically relies on how…
In preimplantation mammalian embryos, the second cell fate decision introduces spatial patterns of embryonic and extra-embryonic precursor cells. The transcription factors NANOG and GATA6 are the earliest markers for the two cell types and…
During organismal development, biochemical reaction networks sense and respond to mechanical forces to coordinate embryonic patterning with embryo morphogenesis. Factors such as cortical tension, cell density, and matrix mechanical…
We analyze an inhomogeneous system of coupled reaction-diffusion equations representing the dynamics of gene expression during differentiation of nerve cells. The outcome of this developmental phase is the formation of distinct functional…
We propose a physical model for developmental process at cellular level to discuss the mechanism of epigenetic landscape. In our simplified model, a minimal model, the network of the interaction among cells generates the landscape…
The self-organization of cells into complex tissues relies on a tight coordination of cell behavior. Identifying the cellular processes driving tissue growth is key to understanding the emergence of tissue forms and devising targeted…
In a recent article [Vetter and Iber, Nat. Commun. 13, 1145 (2022)], we demonstrated that single morphogen gradients in the developing mouse neural tube can carry sufficient positional accuracy to explain the patterning precision of…
The rheological properties of biological tissues are core to processes such as cancer metastasis, wound healing and embryo development. The emergence of tissue and organ structures during morphogenesis requires the precise formation of…
Biological genotypes do not code directly for phenotypes; developmental physiology is the control layer that separates genomes from capacities ascertained by selection. A key aspect is competency, as cells are not a passive material but…
Multicellular organisms contain a wide variety of highly specialized cell types. The consistency and robustness of developmental trajectories suggest that complex gene regulatory networks effectively act as low-dimensional cell fate…
Morphogenetic dynamics of tissue sheets require coordinated cell shape changes regulated by global patterning of mechanical forces. Inspired by such biological phenomena, we propose a minimal mechanochemical model based on the notion that…
Epigenetic Tracking is a mathematical model of biological cells, originally conceived to study embryonic development. Computer simulations proved the capacity of the model to generate complex 3-dimensional cellular structures, and the…
During embryogenesis tissue layers continuously rearrange and fold into specific shapes. Developmental biology identified patterns of gene expression and cytoskeletal regulation underlying local tissue dynamics, but how actions of multiple…
The migration behavior of colliding cells is critically determined by transient contact-interactions. During these interactions, the motility machinery, including the front-rear polarization of the cell, dynamically responds to surface…
The genetic instructions stored in the genome require an additional layer of information to robustly determine cell fate. This additional regulation is provided by the interplay between chromosome-patterning biochemical ("epigenetic") marks…
Cell fate decisions emerge as a consequence of a complex set of gene regulatory networks. Models of these networks are known to have more parameters than data can determine. Recent work, inspired by Waddington's metaphor of a landscape, has…
We propose a new non-equilibrium model for spatial pattern formation on the basis of local information transfer. Unlike standard models of pattern formation it is not based on the Turing instability. Information is transmitted through the…
Space-saving design is a requirement that is encountered in biological systems and the development of modern technological devices alike. Many living organisms dynamically pack their polymer chains, filaments or membranes inside of…
Communicating cells can coordinate their gene expressions to form spatial patterns. 'Secrete-and-sense cells' secrete and sense the same molecule to do so and are ubiquitous. Here we address why and how these cells, from disordered…
Multicellular organisms comprise a diverse collection of stable tissues built from different cell types. It remains unclear how large numbers of interacting cells can precisely coordinate their gene expression during tissue…