Multi-scale regulation of cell branching: Modeling morphogenesis

Multi-scale Modeling of Gene Regulation of Morphogenesis

In this paper we demonstrate a spatio-temporal gene regulatory network for early gastrulation in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. We measure gene expression during early gastrulation using a gene expression quantification tool. We measure gene expression during early gastrulation when the embryo is more or less radial symmetrical and where there is only one body axis (the aboral oral bod...

Modeling lung branching morphogenesis.

Vertebrate lung has tree-like structure which facilitates gas exchange. After discovery of the involvement of several key toolkit genes--FGF10, BMP4, and Shh, huge amount of molecular information on lung development is now available. However, how their interactions result in a branched structure has not been elucidated. Recently, some studies have utilized mathematical models to understand the ...

Modeling Dynamics of Salivary Gland Branching Morphogenesis

Biology meets physics: Reductionism and multi-scale modeling of morphogenesis.

A common reductionist assumption is that macro-scale behaviors can be described "bottom-up" if only sufficient details about lower-scale processes are available. The view that an "ideal" or "fundamental" physics would be sufficient to explain all macro-scale phenomena has been met with criticism from philosophers of biology. Specifically, scholars have pointed to the impossibility of deducing b...

Cell and fibronectin dynamics during branching morphogenesis.

Branching morphogenesis is a dynamic developmental process shared by many organs, but the mechanisms that reorganize cells during branching morphogenesis are not well understood. We hypothesized that extensive cell rearrangements are involved, and investigated cell migration using two-color confocal time-lapse microscopy to image cell and extracellular-matrix dynamics in developing salivary gla...