Cell shape changes indicate a role for extrinsic tensile forces in Drosophila germ-band extension
- 7 June 2009
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Nature
- Vol. 11 (7), 859-864
- https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb1894
Abstract
Drosophila germ-band extension (GBE) is an example of the convergence and extension movements that elongate and narrow embryonic tissues. To understand the collective cell behaviours underlying tissue morphogenesis, we have continuously quantified cell intercalation and cell shape change during GBE. We show that the fast, early phase of GBE depends on cell shape change in addition to cell intercalation. In antero-posterior patterning mutants such as those for the gap gene Kruppel, defective polarized cell intercalation is compensated for by an increase in antero-posterior cell elongation, such that the initial rate of extension remains the same. Spatio-temporal patterns of cell behaviours indicate that an antero-posterior tensile force deforms the germ band, causing the cells to change shape passively. The rate of anteroposterior cell elongation is reduced in twist mutant embryos, which lack mesoderm. We propose that cell shape change contributing to germ-band extension is a passive response to mechanical forces caused by the invaginating mesoderm.Keywords
This publication has 29 references indexed in Scilit:
- Tissue tectonics: morphogenetic strain rates, cell shape change and intercalationNature Methods, 2009
- Control of cell flattening and junctional remodeling during squamous epithelial morphogenesis inDrosophilaDevelopment, 2008
- Hydrodynamic simulation of multicellular embryo invaginationPhysical Biology, 2008
- Oriented cell divisions in the extending germband ofDrosophilaDevelopment, 2007
- Analysis and reconstitution of the genetic cascade controlling early mesoderm morphogenesis in the Drosophila embryoMechanisms of Development, 2007
- Mechanisms of elongation in embryogenesisDevelopment, 2006
- Myosin-dependent junction remodelling controls planar cell intercalation and axis elongationNature, 2004
- GFP-tagged balancer chromosomes for Drosophila melanogasterMechanisms of Development, 1999
- The cellular basis of the convergence and extension of the Xenopus neural plateDevelopmental Dynamics, 1992
- Rearrangement of enveloping layer cells without disruption of the epithelial permeability barrier as a factor in Fundulus epibolyDevelopmental Biology, 1987