Berlin 2018 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 10: Postersession II

BP 10.43: Poster

Monday, March 12, 2018, 17:30–19:30, Poster C

Role of mechanics in morphogenesis control — •Jason Khadka, Jean-Daniel Julien, and Karen Alim — Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen, Germany

A major question in developmental biology is to understand how reproducible shapes arises from the collective behaviour of individual cells. What is the role of feedback of mechanical forces on cell growth? In plants, cell shapes are controlled by individual cell wall stiffness, which itself is controlled by tissue-wide mechanical stresses via the dynamics of cortical microtubules. The prime model to investigate the impact of this mechanical feedback on cell growth is the tip of a plant shoot termed shoot apical meristem. This stem-cell niche is the source of all above-ground plant organs, where mechanics is well defined by its near dome-like structure. We built a quasi-three dimensional vertex model for plant tissue growth. Using the model, we investigate the role of mechanics for robust tissue shape formation by studying morphological changes of shoot shape that arise from limiting cellular ability to read mechanical signal. Further, we employ our model to analyse the importance of cell division in maintenance of shoot shape by investigating tissue morphologies with different underlying cell division patterns.