Quantitative Biology Seminar | Angular Morphomechanics in the Establishment of Multicellular Architecture of Glandular Tissues | Speaker: Kandice Tanner (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)

Speaker: Kandice Tanner (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)

We address a fundamental question in morphogenesis: what are the physical laws that govern the assembly of acinar structures? We report a novel type of human cell motility where single cells undergo multiple rotations. This motion is maintained as the cells cohesively divide to assemble into polarized multicellular spherical structures (acini) when placed in a 3D basement membrane surrogate gel. We visualize the complete evolution from the single cell to an acinus. We link the functional relevance of coherent angular motion (CAMo) to spherical architecture, and determine the importance of molecules involved in cell-cell adhesion and tissue polarity to the outcome. CAMo is observed in both primary human cells and established breast cell lines where the final realized geometry is spherical. Breast cancer cells do not display CAMo but are randomly motile. Upon ‘phenotypic reversion’ of malignant cells, both CAMo motility and correct architecture are restored.