２０１７年５月９日 Dr. FuLai Wen

日時：２０１７年５月９日（火）　１４：３０〜１６：００
場所：首都大学東京　８号館３０４号室
講師：Dr. FuLai Wen (理化学研究所)
題目：Modeling autonomous epithelial folding

要旨：The folding of epithelial cell sheets plays an essential role in developing tissues and organs, such as neural tubes, optic cups, and branches of lungs. While many efforts have been made to identify the molecular machineries underlying epithelial sheet folding, far less is understood about how forces deform individual cells to sculpt the overall tissue morphology. Using a simple mathematical model, we show that an autonomous epithelial folding can be induced by modulating the mechanical properties at the basal-lateral as well as the apical cell surfaces. The different modulation mechanisms sculpt epithelia into distinct fold morphology, which remains unchanged under mechanical perturbations from the surroundings, suggesting that the autonomous folding mechanisms can robustly work in various environmental conditions. Such tissue deformation characteristics is verified in experiments, indicating that our theory could be used to infer the modulation mechanisms utilized in tissue morphogenesis based on the measurements of tissue morphology.