Abstract
The bending of cell sheets plays a major role in multicellular embryonic morphogenesis. Recent advances are leading to a deeper understanding of how the biophysical properties and the force-producing behaviors of cells are regulated, and how these forces are integrated across cell sheets during bending. We review work that shows that the dynamic balance of apical versus basolateral cortical tension controls specific aspects of invagination of epithelial sheets, and recent evidence that tissue expansion by growth contributes to neural retinal invagination in a stem cell-derived, self-organizing system. Of special interest is the detailed analysis of the type B inversion in Volvox reported in BMC Biology by Höhn and Hallmann, as this is a system that promises to be particularly instructive in understanding morphogenesis of any monolayered spheroid system.See research article: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/9/89
Highlights
The bending of cell sheets plays a major role in multicellular embryonic morphogenesis
A number of mechanisms have been proposed for cell sheet bending, including growth pressure, cell shape changes driven by cell-cell or cell-matrix adhesion, or by the cytoskeleton, for example, each with varying levels of experimental support
Apical constriction does not act alone, as recent work shows that the dynamic balance of cortical tension in apical versus basolateral cell domains plays a large role in regulating the specific aspects of cell shape, such as apical-basal elongation, that determine how the sheet is bent
Summary
The bending of cell sheets plays a major role in multicellular embryonic morphogenesis. Cyto plasm is forced basally but is simultaneously met with apical-basal resistance to elongation, thereby producing cell wedging, and bending of the sheet in one step [1,2] (Figure 1, step a).
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