Cell jamming transitions can affect regulatory protein gradients and prime evolutionary divergence

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary developmental biology
• Biophysics
• Cellular mechanics

Background:

• Understanding how cellular processes scale to organism-level patterns is a key challenge.
• Embryonic tissues exhibit viscoelastic properties, suggesting gene regulatory networks interact with material tissue properties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the link between cell-level dynamics and large-scale variations in morphogenesis.
• To explore how tissue mechanics influence gene regulatory networks and evolutionary divergence.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of cell shape and movement coordination in avian beak primordia.
• Tracking of local jamming transitions in mesenchymal cell fields.
• Assessing the spatial reach and gradients of regulatory proteins in relation to tissue mechanical state.

Main Results:

• Local jamming cycles in avian beak primordia alter cell shape and movement coordination.
• These cycles modulate the spatial reach of regulatory proteins, affecting their gradients.
• Protein gradients sensitive to jamming show significant population variation, influencing tissue compartmentalization and beak morphology.

Conclusions:

• Jamming transitions in embryonic tissues integrate physical processes and biological regulation.
• These transitions enable tissues to maintain robustness while allowing for adaptive flexibility and evolutionary divergence.
• Cell-level jamming dynamics provide a mechanism for scaling local rules to tissue-level patterning, promoting diversification.