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Mathematical approaches to modelling biological complexity: Inverse blebbing and tissue growth in Drosophila abdomen
Par Andrea Cairoli (Crick Institute)
Le 22 Novembre 2022 à 11h00 - Salle de séminaires 5ème étage, Tour 32-33

Résumé

Cells are the building blocks of living systems and undoubtedly fascinating entities. They move autonomously, interact among themselves and with the microenvironment, react to external perturbations, and self-organize into multibody assemblies. All these phenomena rely on the complex feedback between sub- and cellular processes, macroscale properties and external cues. In this seminar, by combining data analysis and modelling approaches, I will discuss two of these cell behaviours. 

 

First, I will study how cells react to large mechanical forces such as pressure gradients and/or shear stresses by forming inverse cellular blebs. These are intracellular protrusions first observed experimentally during sprouting angiogenesis. I will formulate a biophysical model of this process. I will discuss how the model shows that cell membrane mechanical properties affect the morphology and dynamics of inverse blebs and how it predicts coarsening akin to Ostwald ripening among multiple invaginating inverse blebs. 

 

Second, I will discuss how cells autonomously grow into higher order tissues in an exemplary system, the abdomen of Drosophila. During metamorphosis, adult cell precursors, also called histoblasts, in the abdomen of Drosophila invade the pre-existing larval epidermal tissue, by coordinating the extrusion of larval epithelial cells through apoptosis, and fuse at the dorsal midline. By reconstructing the spatiotemporal dynamic of cell elongation, area and velocity, I will study how the histoblasts fine regulate their growth at the expense of the larval cells to reach the correct tissue size. I will conclude by formulating a continuum model of the tissue dynamic in this system.