The Pulse of Morphogenesis: Actomyosin Dynamics and Regulation in Epithelia

Overview

Journal Development

Specialty Biology

Date 2020 Sep 4

PMID 32878903

Citations 18

Authors

Hui Miao

J Todd Blankenship

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Actomyosin networks are some of the most crucial force-generating components present in developing tissues. The contractile forces generated by these networks are harnessed during morphogenesis to drive various cell and tissue reshaping events. Recent studies of these processes have advanced rapidly, providing us with insights into how these networks are initiated, positioned and regulated, and how they act via individual contractile pulses and/or the formation of supracellular cables. Here, we review these studies and discuss the mechanisms that underlie the construction and turnover of such networks and structures. Furthermore, we provide an overview of how ratcheted processivity emerges from pulsed events, and how tissue-level mechanics are the coordinated output of many individual cellular behaviors.

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