Laura Rustarazo-Calvo

⚡ Check out the lab's latest preprint - beautiful work by @cami-autorino.bsky.social ⚡

Join this week's VGZT seminar to explore evo-devo in eels and how rigidity transitions shape embryonic tissue organization! 🐟

Adhesion-driven tissue rigidification triggers epithelial cell polarity The active regulation of tissue material properties via phase transitions is central in morphogenesis. Transitions abruptly occur at critical points in diverse control parameters, including cell densi...

🔗 You can read the full story here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#DevBio #Mechanobiology #Biophysics

⚡️Overall, we find that the pluripotent embryo can change its morphogenetic trajectory based on the type of material state phase transitions it undergoes.

⚡️This suggests that phase transitions are not simple modulators of tissue deformability, but actively impact the tissue morphogenetic potential.

7/ The discretization of tissue morphologies driven by the phase transition control parameters is also reflected at the molecular level: When adhesion-driven solidification is uncoupled from jamming, tissues form lumens and acquire epithelial polarity.

6/ Simulations and experiments show how by uncoupling vs. coupling changes in cell density and adhesion, tissues dramatically change their morphology. This is mainly due to a porous to non-porous transition, occurring at the adhesion critical point as tricellular junctions close.

5/ By measuring tissue viscosity and cell contact dynamics, we find that adhesion alone determines the material state. If the critical point in adhesion is crossed, the tissue will be solid-like, independently of cell density. Then, what’s the importance of the other parameters?

4/ We establish #optogenetic and pharmacological tools to experimentally engineer pluripotent tissues to undergo material phase transitions using different combinations of the control parameters. How does each parameter contribute to tissue rheology?

3/ We study this in the pluripotent #zebrafish early embryo, where three parameters – cell adhesion, density, and connectivity – shift together during a fluidization transition, crossing their respective critical points. But can these parameters be uncoupled?

2/ Unlike inert materials, living tissues transition between fluid and solid states by dynamically tuning a variety of control parameters, like cell shape, adhesion and density. Does this multiplicity of control parameters matter for biological function?

1/ We investigate how the way that a tissue transitions from a fluid- to a solid-like material state - an essential process in development, wound healing, and disease - can impact its organization at the morphological and even molecular level.

🎉 Excited to share our new work: “Adhesion-driven tissue rigidification triggers epithelial cell polarity”, now on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social !

A huge thank you to @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social, Bernat, @crisp-c.bsky.social, Adrián, and everyone involved! 🙌

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