The emergence of geometric order in proliferating metazoan epithelia

Matthew C. Gibson (), Ankit B. Patel, Radhika Nagpal and Norbert Perrimon
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Matthew C. Gibson: Harvard Medical School
Ankit B. Patel: Harvard University
Radhika Nagpal: Harvard University
Norbert Perrimon: Harvard Medical School

Nature, 2006, vol. 442, issue 7106, 1038-1041

Abstract: Sent Packing Throughout the multicellular eukaryotes, epithelial cell sheets resemble irregular polygonal arrays dominated by hexagonal cells. Precisely how this fundamental pattern forms remains poorly understood, although it was commonly assumed that cells sort into honeycomb arrays by the physics of optimal packing. A combination of time-lapse microscopy of proliferating epithelial cells with clonal analysis and mathematical modelling has been used to refute this idea. The default polygonal topology of metazoan epithelia is not random nor the product of minimal packing, but is a direct mathematical consequence of the cell division process. Cell division intrinsically restricts epithelial sheets to a specific equilibrium distribution of four- to nine-sided polygonal cells. This structure is found in the simple epithelia of organisms as diverse as Drosophila, the cnidarian Hydra, and the frog Xenopus.

Date: 2006
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DOI: 10.1038/nature05014

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