Abstract

The collective migration of epithelial cells underlies tissue remodeling events associated with morphogenesis, intestinal turnover, wound repair, and cancer. For an epithelium to migrate in a directed way, the cytoskeletal machinery that powers each cell’s motility must become aligned in the direction of tissue movement. Using the follicular epithelium of Drosophila, my lab studies how this tissue-level alignment is achieved. In the first part of the talk, I will discuss our work on a planar signaling system that determines where leading-edge protrusions form in each cell, as well as our efforts to understand how these initially local signals are propagated to polarize the epithelium for directed migration. In the second part of the talk, I will discuss how a parallel array of stress fibers at each cell’s basal surface may reinforce collective migration by ensuring that all of the cells in the tissue maintain a linear trajectory.