The role of supracellular actomyosin in collective cell migration in vivo

最具破坏性的疾病之一是癌症，我们仍然没有完全了解或能够控制它。癌细胞表现出许多与胚胎细胞相同的行为。例如，在胚胎发育过程中，细胞在全身移动，这种现象与癌细胞在转移过程中的运动相呼应。这使得研究人员假设，驱动这些过程的细胞和分子机制可能是相似的。我们将研究在发展过程中控制迁移的机制。我们选择头神经嵴细胞作为胚胎发育的例子，因为它们非常适合体内细胞迁移研究，而且它们在颅面发育中起着重要作用。重要的是，颅面疾病是婴儿死亡的主要原因，对儿童和父母都有严重的终生后果。我们将测试一个新的假设，即当一组细胞向一个化学信号移动时，位于后面的细胞，而不是前面的细胞，是为整个细胞簇的移动产生动力的细胞。我们期望在这里产生的对细胞迁移的新理解将有助于设计癌症和颅面畸形的新治疗方法。

One of the most devastating diseases is cancer, which we still do not fully understand or are able to control. Cancer cells exhibit many of the same behaviours as embryonic cells. For example, during embryonic development cells move throughout the body, a phenomenon echoed in the movements of cancer cells during metastasis. This has led researchers to suppose that the cellular and molecular mechanisms driving these processes may be similar. We will study the mechanisms controlling migration during development. We have chosen the cephalic neural crest cells as an example from embryonic development, as they are perfectly suited for cell migration studies in vivo and because they play a major role in craniofacial development. Importantly, craniofacial disorders are a primary cause of infant mortality and have serious lifetime consequences, devastating for both children and parents. We will test the novel hypothesis that when a group of cells migrates towards a chemical signal the cells located at the back, instead of the front cells, are the ones that generate the force for the movement of the whole cell cluster. We expect that the new understanding of cell migration generated here will be useful to design novel therapeutic approaches in cancer and craniofacial malformation.