Cell topology, geometry, and morphogenesis in proliferating epithelia

Epithelia are sheets of tightly adherent cells that line both internal and external surfaces in a vast array of metazoans. During development, an intrinsic consequence of coupling tight adhesion with cellular proliferation is the emergence of an epithelial form characterized by a stereotyped distribution of polygonal cell shapes. Despite the near universality of this constraint on cell shape and tissue organization, very little is known about the possible implications of cell pattern geometry for mechanical properties of tissues or key biological processes, such as planar polarization, tissue remodeling, and cell division. In this chapter, through an examination of increasingly complex models, we highlight what is known about the role of mitotic proliferation in the emergence of epithelial cell geometry, and examine some possible implications for tissue morphogenesis. Ideally, continued progress in this area will address a major conceptual challenge in biology, which is to understand aspects of morphogenesis that are not explicitly directed by genetic control, but instead emerge from the complex interactions between geometric and biomechanical properties of epithelial tissues.