Abstract
Cell and tissue shape changes are the fundamental elements of morphogenesis that drive normal development of embryos into fully functional organisms. This requires a variety of cellular processes including establishment and maintenance of polarity, tissue growth and apoptosis, and cell differentiation, rearrangement, and migration. It is widely appreciated that the cytoskeletal networks play an important role in regulating many of these processes and, in particular, that pulsed actomyosin contractions are a core cellular mechanism driving cell shape changes and cell rearrangement. In this review, we discuss the role of pulsed actomyosin contractions during developmental morphogenesis, advances in our understanding of the mechanisms regulating actomyosin pulsing, and novel techniques to probe the role of pulsed actomyosin processes in in vivo model systems.
Highlights
Most embryos are initially relatively spherical and undergo extensive morphogenetic changes to generate the final form of the organism
The past decade has seen a new focus on the dynamics of actomyosin contractility and the importance of pulsed actomyosin contractions for cell and tissue shape changes such as apical constriction, epithelial folding, and tissue extension and closure
Actomyosin pulsing is important for tube formation in the Drosophila leg, salivary, and renal tissue[7,8,9], as well as the Xenopus neural epithelium[10]
Summary
F1000 Faculty Reviews are written by members of the prestigious F1000 Faculty. They are commissioned and are peer reviewed before publication to ensure that the final, published version is comprehensive and accessible. The reviewers who approved the final version are listed with their names and affiliations. Any comments on the article can be found at the end of the article
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