Understanding self-organised tissue patterning across scales

随着我们身体的生长，每个器官是如何控制自己的形状和形态的？我们知道，如果这个过程不正确，我们就会患上发育性疾病或癌症。如果我们能够了解控制形状和形态的方法，那么也许我们将能够干预纠正这些疾病。我们知道，每个器官或组织都由许多细胞组成，而每个细胞又由许多分子（如蛋白质）组成。但是，多少个小分子如何相互作用才能使每个细胞具有正确的形状，多少个细胞如何相互作用才能形成比每个分子大数百万倍的正确形状的器官？器官控制其形态的一个重要方法是正确地定位细胞之间的相对位置。这不仅适用于人类，也适用于所有动物，包括不起眼的果蝇。在这里，我们计划研究果蝇的翅膀，在那里我们可以快速，轻松地做实验来操纵特定蛋白质的生产，并探索这如何影响单个细胞的方向，进而影响整个组织的形状和功能（在这种情况下，翅膀）。我们还将利用数学和物理学把我们的实验证据结合在一起，帮助我们理解这些机制，通过在计算机中模拟它们，并预测如果我们以某种方式操纵它，翅膀的蛋白质和细胞应该如何表现。然后，我们将通过进一步的实验来验证这些预测，这将使我们能够决定最初的假设是否正确，并最终了解细胞方向协调如何影响动物器官的形式和功能背后的原理。

As our body grows, how does each organ control its shape and form? We know that when this doesn't happen correctly, we can get developmental diseases or cancer. If we can understand the ways of controlling shape and form, then perhaps we will be able to intervene to correct these diseases. We know that each organ or tissue is made of many cells and each cell is made of very many molecules such as proteins. But how do many small molecules interact together so that each cell has the correct form, and how do many cells interact together to form an organ with the correct form, many millions of times larger than each molecule? One important way that an organ can control its form is by correctly orienting its cells relative to each other. This is true not just in humans, but in all animals, including the humble fruit fly. Here, we plan to study the fruit fly wing, where we can quickly and easily do experiments to manipulate the production of particular proteins and explore how this affects the orientation of individual cells and, in turn, the shape and function of the whole tissue (in this case, a wing). We will also use mathematics and physics to put our experimental evidence together and help us to understand these mechanisms, by simulating them in the computer and making predictions about how the proteins and cells of the wing should behave if we manipulate it in some way. We will then test these predictions by doing further experiments, which will allow us to decide if the original assumptions were correct and ultimately understand the principles behind how the coordination of cell orientation contributes to the form and function of animal organs.