Regensburg 2025 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 16: Focus Session: Nonlinear Dynamics in Biological Systems II (joint session DY/BP)
BP 16.2: Vortrag
Dienstag, 18. März 2025, 14:30–14:45, H43
Reshaping morphogen gradients through porous tissue architecture — •Diana Khoromskaia1,2 and Zena Hadjivasiliou1,2,3 — 1Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom — 2University College London, London, United Kingdom — 3London Centre for Nanotechnology, London, United Kingdom
The morphogenesis of tissues during embryonic development is controlled by concentration gradients of morphogens -- signalling molecules whose readout determines cell fate decisions. How the spread of morphogens is affected in tissues with complex geometry and spatially heterogeneous architecture is not well understood. To address this question, we introduce a porous vertex model, by explicitly considering the network of extracellular spaces between the cells. Morphogens produced by source cells disperse through the tissue via three modes of transport: extracellular diffusion, membrane-bound diffusion, and cell-based transport through recycling. With this model we investigate numerically and analytically how cell-scale geometry, such as cell size, cell shape anisotropy, and cell distance, influences effective diffusion and degradation of morphogens at tissue-scale. We further show that a non-linear coupling between cell packing and morphogen concentration renders the morphogen gradient robust to perturbations, for instance by locally buffering fluctuations in the production. Our characterisation of tissues as active porous materials provides new insights into how morphogenesis and cell fate determination may interact during embryonic development.
Keywords: vertex model; morphogen gradient; reaction-diffusion system; porous media