Back

Cell-cell communication controls the timing of gastruloid symmetry-breaking

Oriola, D.; Torregrosa-Cortes, G.; Arato, K.; Fernandez-Munuera, D.; Hahn, E. M.; Anlas, K.; Garcia-Ojalvo, J.; Trivedi, V.

2024-12-20 biophysics
10.1101/2024.12.16.628776 bioRxiv
Show abstract

How cell fate decisions coordinate with tissue-scale morphogenesis remains a major challenge in developmental biology. Gastruloids, three-dimensional aggregates of pluripotent stem cells that self-organise and break symmetry via polarised Brachyury/T expression, provide an ideal system to address this question. By generating gastruloids with defined initial proportions of T-expressing cells, we show that fate decisions occur collectively, with the pluripotent population delaying differentiation and controlling the timing of symmetry breaking. Mechanical measurements reveal differences in surface tension between T-positive and T-negative tissues, consistent with radial cell sorting. Finally, incorporating fate dynamics and mechanics into a computational model recapitulates the sequential symmetry-breaking events observed in vitro. Our findings identify a mechanochemical mechanism underlying axis formation, and demonstrate how multicellular systems can robustly self-organise without external signalling cues.

Matching journals

The top 4 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.