Affiliation:
1. Department of Molecular Biosciences, Northwestern University
2. NSF Simons Center for Quantitative Biology, Northwestern University
3. Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University
Abstract
Pattern formation of biological structures involves the arrangement of different types of cells in an ordered spatial configuration. In this study, we investigate the mechanism of patterning the Drosophila eye epithelium into a precise triangular grid of photoreceptor clusters called ommatidia. Previous studies had led to a long-standing biochemical model whereby a reaction-diffusion process is templated by recently formed ommatidia to propagate a molecular prepattern across the eye. Here, we find that the templating mechanism is instead, mechanochemical in origin; newly born columns of differentiating ommatidia serve as a template to spatially pattern flows that move epithelial cells into position to form each new column of ommatidia. Cell flow is generated by a source and sink, corresponding to narrow zones of cell dilation and contraction respectively, that straddle the growing wavefront of ommatidia. The newly formed lattice grid of ommatidia cells are immobile, deflecting, and focusing the flow of other cells. Thus, the self-organization of a regular pattern of cell fates in an epithelium is mechanically driven.
Funder
National Institutes of Health
National Science Foundation
Simons Foundation
Publisher
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Subject
General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine,General Neuroscience
Cited by
15 articles.
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