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Updated: Oct 31, 2025

Probing the Roles of Physical Forces in Early Chick Embryonic Morphogenesis
Published on: June 5, 2018
Force-mediated cellular anisotropy and plasticity dictate the elongation dynamics of embryos
Chao Fang1,2, Xi Wei1,2, Xueying Shao1,2
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Abstract:
We developed a unified dynamic model to explain how cellular anisotropy and plasticity, induced by alignment and severing/rebundling of actin filaments, dictate the elongation dynamics of Caenorhabditis elegans embryos. It was found that the gradual alignment of F-actins must be synchronized with the development of intracellular forces for the embryo to elongate, which is then further sustained by muscle contraction-triggered plastic deformation of cells. In addition, we showed that preestablished anisotropy is essential for the proper onset of the process while defects in the integrity or bundling kinetics of actin bundles result in abnormal embryo elongation, all in good agreement with experimental observations.
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