Elucidating the interplay between cellular behaviour and tissue mechanics during morphogenesis

细胞是构成生物体的组织和器官的基石。在这个过程中，细胞使用的一种策略是将自己排列成片状，称为上皮细胞，然后通过一种分子驱动的生物偶配折叠成形状。上皮是由细胞通过称为“连接”的特殊附着物相互连接而形成的。细胞包含一个细胞支架或细胞骨架，它与“连接点”相连，并允许它们以受控的方式改变和保持其形状。弯曲和折叠这些薄片会产生生物体，而这些活动的失败会导致变形或结构缺陷。由于这些原因，细胞骨架活动和细胞间“连接”活动的协调是折叠细胞膜的关键因素，这并不奇怪。多年来，果蝇已经被证明是揭示动物发育机制的一个很好的系统。最近，它也被证明是一种有价值的研究工具来分析细胞群的活动和上皮的运动和折叠。在这里，我们计划用苍蝇胚胎来研究细胞弯曲、折叠和相互作用的分子基础。为了做到这一点，我们将结合经典的生物学技术，研究特定过程中突变的影响，并在组织水平上对细胞产生的力进行工程类型的分析。

Cells are the building blocks for the tissues and organs that make up organisms. One strategy used by cells in this process is to arrange themselves in sheets, called epithelia, that are then folded into shapes through a kind of molecularly driven bio-oregamy. Epithelia are configured by cells joining each other through specialized attachments called 'junctions'. Cells contain a cellular scaffolding or cytoskeleton that is linked to the 'junctions' and allows them to change and maintain their shape in a controlled manner. Bending and folding these sheets makes organisms and failures in these activities result in deformations or structural defects. For these reasons, it is not surprising that the coordination of the activity of the cytoskeleton and that of the 'junctions' between cells is a crucial element in the folding of the sheets. Over the years, the fruit fly Drosophila has proven an excellent system to unravel the mechanics of animal development. Recently it is also proving a valuable research tool to analyze the activities of groups of cells and the movement and folding of epithelia. Here we plan to use the fly embryo to study the molecular basis of bending, folding and interactions between sheets of cells. We shall do this by combining classical biological techniques anchored in the study of the effects of mutations on a particular process with engineering type analysis of the forces generated by cells at the level of tissues.