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Seminar

Thursday, May 25th, 2023
14h
Centre de recherche - Paris - Amphithéâtre Marie Curie

Junctional Force Patterning drives both Positional and Orientational Order in Auditory Epithelia

For physiological function, organs must organise constituent cell types in precise spatial and orientational order. While in single-cell type epithelia, morphogenesis is driven by forces exerted at cell junctions, it is not known whether forces can drive the acquisition of patterns and polarity in organs comprising multiple cell types. In this talk, I will discuss the process of global alignment in the avian auditory epithelium. It consists of two cell types, hair cells (HCs), with an asymmetric mechanosensory hair bundle on its apex, and supporting cells (SCs). During development, these two cell types form a regular pattern, and the hair bundle of each HC aligns with the tissue axis. Based on experiment and theory, I will argue that tissue-wide force patterning generates both positional and orientational order. Positional order is established by differences between the mechanical activity of cell-cell junctions. These differences are encoded by cell-specific genetic programmes restricting the di-phosphorylated form of non-muscle myosin-II regulatory light chain (RLC) to specific junctions. Importantly, the hair bundle organises supracellular patterns of myosin activity through the local attenuation of RLC phosphorylation, generating global polarity across the entire tissue.

Speaker(s)

Karsten Kruse
Université de Genève

Hosted by


PCC Seminar Team

Invited by

Jean-François Joanny

Contact

Jean-François Joanny

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PCC Seminar Team

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