Submitted by Mel Quy on Mon, 07/03/2022 - 14:24
A new collaborative paper led by the Paluch, Nichols and Chalut labs at PDN and the Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, explores the self-organisation of tissues in early embryos, offering an explanation for how cells sort themselves as they develop.
The paper discovered that fluctuations on the surface of cells ultimately drive the segregation or foetus-forming cells (epiblast) from cells that will become extraembryonic tissue (primitive endoderm cells). The segregation of the epiblast and primitive endoderm is crucial for embryonic development, yet how these two layers of the embryo actually physically segregate from each other was not known. The paper shows that classical models of how cells separate from one another do not hold in this sorting process. Instead, the mechanism of sorting is that the primitive endoderm cells exhibit more surface fluctuations and become more fluid, helping them to sort to their proper location. Last author Kevin Chalut says: “We believe this will not only help better understand early development, but it also provides insight for cell sorting in other important processes, not just in development but possibly in, for example, tumours.”
The study resulted from a cross-disciplinary collaboration between 4 PDN groups (Chalut, Nichols, Paluch and Franze labs) as well as theoretical physics collaborators in Cambridge (Blumenfeld group) and at IST Austria (Hannezo group) combining developmental biology, quantitative imaging, biophysical measurements and modelling.
Paper details and link:
Yanagida A, Corujo-Simon E, Revell CK, Sahu P, Stirparo GG, Aspalter IM, Winkel AK, Peters R, De Belly H, Cassani DAD, Achouri S, Blumenfeld R, Franze K, Hannezo E, Paluch EK*, Nichols J*, Chalut KJ*. Cell surface fluctuations regulate early embryonic lineage sorting. (2022) Cell
doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.01.022
Image credits: Elena Corujo-Simon
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867422001234?via%3Dihub