Dresden 2014 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 26: Multi-cellular systems and Physics of Cancer
BP 26.4: Talk
Wednesday, April 2, 2014, 12:30–12:45, ZEU 250
Physical Principles of Body Plan Scaling in Planarians — •Steffen Werner1, Manuel Beirán Amigo1, Jochen Rink2, Frank Jülicher1, and Benjamin M. Friedrich1 — 1Max-Planck-Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany — 2Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany
In many biological systems, body plan patterning operates at variable length scales during development and regeneration. The flatworm Planarian is a master of regeneration and body plan scaling, inspiring our theoretical work on fundamental principles of scalable pattern formation.
Planarians can grow and actively degrow by more than an order of magnitude in size, depending on feeding conditions, while maintaining shape and function of all parts of the body. Moreover, Planarians can rebuild its entire body plan from a tiny amputation fragment, prompting for size-independent mechanisms of self-organized body patterning.
We are interested in general principles underlying scalable pattern formation that go beyond classical Turing mechanisms. Turing mechanisms provide a means of self-organized patterning that is characterized by an intrinsic length scale, which eventually precludes scaling. We discuss feedback mechanisms that adjust this length-scale to the system size in an autonomous manner, resulting in a minimal model for robust pattern-formation that scales with system size. We are closely collaborating with the experimental lab of Jochen Rink at the MPI CBG (Dresden) to apply our theoretical framework to Planarians.