Illuminating mechanisms of mammalian morphogenesis

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• Kate McDole (LMB)
• Thursday 21 November 2024, 16:00-17:00
• Lecture Theatre, Department of Pathology, Tennis Court Road.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Michael Boemo.

Starting from a relatively simple, uniform population of cells the gastrulating mouse embryo quickly organizes into complex, three-dimensional structures built for highly specialized tasks. The question of how cells coordinate to build these structures and the physical forces involved in sculpting tissues into functional organs is one of intense investigation. Likewise, how developing and dynamic physical environments influence cell fate or behaviour is poorly understood. Many of these questions remain unresolved due to the sensitivity of mammalian embryos to culture and live-imaging, and as such visualizing their development has been notoriously difficult. We have developed an advanced, adaptive light-sheet microscope to gently and comprehensively image the mouse embryo development at single-cell resolution over a course of days. With this system and a suite of computational tools, we can track individual cells and analyse patterns of divisions, as well as build dynamic cell fate maps, segment large populations of cells, and build computational models. We are able to describe not only the morphogenesis of complex three-dimensional structures such as the formation of the early heart or neural tube, but also follow the migration and changing behaviours of specific cell types such as primordial germ cells. By imaging during the onset of gastrulation, we are able to observe the origins of the mammalian midline, the emergence of the node and the formation of the notochord. Following the development of these structures over the next 48 hours provides us a window into the transient life of the node, its role in notochord elongation, its retraction and dissolution, and the behaviour of cells within it. Our live-imaging and computational tools enable us to describe this dynamic process in toto, which is providing intriguing insights into this essential embryonic system.

This talk is part of the Computational and Systems Biology Seminar Series series.

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• Lecture Theatre, Department of Pathology, Tennis Court Road

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