Berlin 2024 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 5: Tissue Mechanics I
BP 5.1: Talk
Monday, March 18, 2024, 15:00–15:15, H 0110
Polydispersity-Mediated Crystallization in the Developing Fruit Fly Wing — •Kartik Chhajed1, Marko Popović1, and Frank Jülicher1,2 — 1Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Nöthnitzer Straße 38, 01187 Dresden — 2Center for Systems Biology Dresden, Pfotenhauerstraße 108, 01307 Dresden
During development of the fruit fly wing the cellular packing in the wing epithelium transitions from a disordered packing to an ordered, crystalline packing. We investigate biophysical mechanisms controlling this crystallization process. While previous studies highlight the role of tissue shear flow in establishing the ordered cell packing, we find that in fly wings where tissue flows have been inhibited the cells still transition from disordered to an ordered packing. Instead, we propose that the transition is controlled by the cell size heterogeneity, which is quantified by the cell size polydispersity. We use vertex model of epithelial tissues to show that there is a critical value of cell size polydispersity above which cellular packings are disordered and below which they form a crystalline packing. Furthermore, by analyzing experimental data we find that cell size polydispersity indeed decreases during the fly wing development in the wild-type wings, while in perturbed wings where cells remain heterogenous in size cellular packing remains disordered. Finally, we find that although tissue flows do not control the transition they do significantly enhance the tissue scale order as they help align locally ordered crystallites on the tissue scales.
Keywords: development; crystallization; fruit fly; vertex model; polydispersity