Cell fate to mechanical cellular properties: coordinated cell behaviours during Drosophila gastrulation
Cell Biology
Final Report Abstract
During the development of an organism, cells change their shape in a variety of ways in order to form the organism's tissues and organs. A common process in shaping animals is the folding of two-dimensional epithelia into three-dimensional structures. This is particularly well studied in the first morphogenetic step of embryogenesis in Drosophila, the formation of the ventral furrow. In particular, we know the genes and the mechanisms that trigger a contraction in the cells of the ventral furrow that leads to furrow formation. However, less is known about how the cells outside the furrow participate in this process and thereby enable it. We have found that the mechanical properties of the different cell populations in the embryo differ and that these differences have an effect on furrow formation. However, we do not know what the molecular and biochemical basis for this is. This is what we wanted to find out with this project. The mechanical properties of the cells in the embryo are primarily determined by the proteins contained in the cell. It matters not only whether a protein is present or not (or in what quantity), but also what the activation state of the protein is, which in turn is determined by other proteins. Two cells that are similar in every respect but have different mechanical properties should therefore differ in the networks of proteins that determine the mechanical properties. This is the assumption that formed the basis of our project. In order to find such proteins, we determined the total number of proteins present in each of the three cell populations that are directly or indirectly involved in furrow formation and compared the abundances of each protein across the three cell populations. We also compared the activation states of these proteins in the populations. We have identified several thousand proteins present in the embryo of which many differ between the cell types. This collection of data, which has been made freely accessible, is not only important for our own research interests, but also forms a valuable basis for other questions. The next step towards our own goal of understanding the basis of shape change was to ask whether the differences we found were relevant to this process. Among the proteins that showed strong differences, we found (among others) components of systems that are responsible for cell mechanics in other situations, such as cell division. These include, for example, the cytoskeleton. We functionally analysed one of these systems, the microtubules, and found that microtubules indeed play different roles in shaping the three cell types.
Publications
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Differential regulation of the proteome and phosphoproteome along the dorso-ventral axis of the early Drosophila embryo. eLife, 13.
Gomez, Juan Manuel; Nolte, Hendrik; Vogelsang, Elisabeth; Dey, Bipasha; Takeda, Michiko; Giudice, Girolamo; Faxel, Miriam; Haunold, Theresa; Cepraga, Alina; Zinzen, Robert P.; Krüger, Marcus; Petsalaki, Evangelia; Wang, Yu-Chiun & Leptin, Maria
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Highly dynamic mechanical transitions in embryonic cell populations during Drosophila gastrulation.
Gomez, Juan Manuel; Bevilacqua, Carlo; Thayambath, Abhisha; Leptin, Maria; Belmonte, Julio M. & Prevedel, Robert
