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Tissue ‘melting’ sculpts embryo

Collections of cells in the tails of zebrafish embryos have now been found to transition between behaving as solids and fluids. This transition is responsible for the head-to-tail elongation of the embryo.
  1. Pierre-François Lenne

    1. Pierre-François Lenne is at the Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille (IBDM), Aix Marseille University, CNRS, 13009 Marseille, France.

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  2. Vikas Trivedi

    1. Vikas Trivedi is at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Barcelona, PRBB, 08003 Barcelona, Spain, and in the Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, UK.

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Understanding how different materials respond to force is central to the field of engineering. For instance, permanent application of force is required to deform a solid-like material, whereas a fluid-like material can be irreversibly deformed by transient forces. Over the past few decades, such concepts have also surfaced in biology. Much like inert materials such as foams and emulsions, collections of cells can switch from solid-like to fluid-like behaviours, depending on cell density and adherence. Processes that coordinate this tissue ‘melting’ with the application of forces have been shown to locally deform tissues while maintaining their global structure1. In a paper in Nature, Mongera et al.2 report that the elongation of the head-to-tail axis in zebrafish embryos relies on spatially controlled tissue ‘melting’.

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Nature 561, 315-316 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-06108-7

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