Quantifying the relationship between cell proliferation and morphology during development of the face

Area of Science:

• Developmental Biology
• Biophysics
• Computational Biology

Background:

• Morphogenesis, the process of biological form generation, involves complex cellular dynamics like proliferation, migration, and apoptosis.
• Understanding how these cellular and tissue-level behaviors orchestrate morphogenesis in three dimensions (3D) remains a significant challenge.
• Existing 3D imaging methods often struggle with throughput and quantification, limiting the exploration of cellular dynamics in developing tissues.

Approach:

• Developed a novel imaging and image analysis pipeline for simultaneous 3D quantification of cellular dynamics and morphology in individual embryos.
• Utilized light-sheet microscopy for high-resolution 3D imaging.
• Employed machine learning for automated cell and tissue segmentation and geometric morphometrics for external morphology quantification.

Key Points:

• Investigated the relationship between the 3D distribution of cell proliferation and morphogenesis during mouse facial development.
• Demonstrated a tight correlation between changes in proliferation patterns and alterations in facial morphology over developmental time.
• The pipeline enables mechanistic investigations into the links between cellular dynamics and 3D tissue morphogenesis.

Conclusions:

• The developed pipeline successfully enables 3D quantification of cellular dynamics and morphology.
• Cell proliferation patterns are significantly correlated with morphological changes during mouse facial development.
• This approach provides a powerful framework for studying the interplay between cellular behaviors and morphogenesis in developing embryos.