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SUMMARY:' The mechanics of tissue morphogenesis ' - Dr Thomas Lecuit - Dev
 elopmental Biology Institute\, Marseilles.
DTSTART:20100225T170000Z
DTEND:20100225T180000Z
UID:TALK22259@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Cath Tinley
DESCRIPTION:_Cells and tissues display remarkable robustness\, i.e. the ab
 ility to keep a polarized or vectorial organization\, important for their 
 physiological role. Meanwhile epithelia show tremendous plasticity\, durin
 g embryonic development and organ regeneration\, i.e. the capacity to adap
 t to intrinsic or extrinsic signals or perturbations. We are interested in
  deciphering basic principles of cell and tissue organization and dynamics
  with a special focus on the problem of how robustness and plasticity are 
 jointly regulated.\n\nWe want to understand how molecular machineries cont
 rol cell polarity and cell shape changes and how these in turn affect tiss
 ue cohesion and plasticity. We study basic cell biological mechanisms\, ho
 w developmental signals control these processes in space and time and how 
 physical properties constrain their dynamics in vivo. The integration of p
 hysical and biochemical description of the processes we study is the major
  challenge we seek to address.\n\nTo this end we have developed multidisci
 plinary approaches spanning quantitative imaging\, functional perturbation
 s\, methods to probe physical properties of tissues and numerical simulati
 ons to test our assumptions/hypothesis.\n\nThe main problem I will discuss
  is an example of tissue plasticity manifested in embryonic tissues. I wil
 l present our current research characterizing how the spatial distribution
  of tension in cells controls locally stereotyped cell shape changes and h
 ow these in turn are coordinated at the tissue level to produce tissue mor
 phogenesis.\n\nThe presentation will delineate 1) spatio-temporal patterns
  in cell dynamics driving tissue morphogenesis\; 2) the subcellular force 
 generating systems driving these kinematic patterns\; 3) how tension trans
 mission affects this process.\n\nWe will discuss how fluctuations in contr
 actile activity are spatially organized to yield robust and reproducible s
 ymmetry breaking in cell dynamics.\n\nThe underlying theme will be to unde
 rstand how tissue level dynamics emerges from subcellular mechanics._
LOCATION:Part II room\,  Department of Genetics
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