A new force awakens: comparative approach to tissue morphogenesis in insects

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Dr Pavel Tomancak from Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden
• Thursday 09 May 2019, 14:00-15:00
• Biffen Lecture Theatre, Department of Genetics, Downing Site.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Caroline Newnham.

Host: Berta Verd

“During gastrulation, physical forces reshape the simple embryonic tissue to form a complex body plan of multicellular organisms. These forces often cause large-scale asymmetric movements of the embryonic tissue. In many embryos, the tissue undergoing gastrulation movements is surrounded by a rigid protective shell. While it is well recognized that gastrulation movements depend on forces generated by tissue-intrinsic contractility, it is not known if interactions between the tissue and the protective shell provide additional forces that impact gastrulation. Our recent work has shown that a particular part of the blastoderm tissue of the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum tightly adheres in a temporally coordinated manner to the vitelline envelope surrounding the embryo. This attachment generates an additional force that counteracts the tissue-intrinsic contractile forces to create asymmetric tissue movements. Furthermore, this localized attachment is mediated by a specific integrin, and its knock-down leads to a gastrulation phenotype consistent with complete loss of attachment. Moreover, analysis of another integrin in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster suggests that gastrulation in this organism also relies on adhesion between the blastoderm and the vitelline envelope. Together, our findings reveal a conserved mechanism whereby the spatiotemporal pattern of tissue adhesion to the vitelline envelope provides controllable counter-forces that shape gastrulation movements in insects. It also provides a new perspective on evolution of early gastrulation processes impacted by patterned contacts with the constraining extra-embryonic envelopes.”

This talk is part of the Genetics Seminar series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Biffen Lecture Theatre, Department of Genetics, Downing Site
• Bioinformatics and other interests
• Biology
• Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise
• DevBio
• Genetics Seminar
• Genetics Seminar Series
• Graduate-Seminars
• Life Sciences
• Life Sciences
• ME Seminar
• Neurons, Fake News, DNA and your iPhone: The Mathematics of Information
• PMRFPS's
• ji247's list
• my_list
• ndk22's list
• other talks

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.