Where is right? Polarity cell inversion in the Zebrafish lateral line

BORGES, AUGUSTO; KOZAC, EVA L; MIRANDA RODRIGUEZ, JERONIMO; CHARA, OSVALDO; LOPEZ-SCHIER HERNAN

Munich

Workshop; 6th annual Quantitative Biosciences Munich (QBM) retreat; 2021

Quantitative Biosciences Munich (QBM)

While in many physical problems one can think of an object apart from the surrounding environment to simplify its study, biological systems seldom act isolated, therefore understanding collective phenomena is key to analyzing these systems. An example of this is the development of the Zebrafish lateral line. There, sensory organs called neuromasts form. To be functional, this organ needs that a particular kind of cell, called hair cell, positions in a well-defined orientation. This process involves a coordinated movement between a pair of sibling cells aligning with a specific axis of tissue polarity. We showed, through experiments and a minimal model, that this process is a confined collective movement that commences spontaneously, and ends with high positional accuracy, in spite of the transcriptional identity of each daughter cell.