Category Archives: Newly published

Newly Published: T. R. Jackson, H. Y. Kim, U. L. Balakrishnan, C. Stuckenholz, and L. A. Davidson (2017). Spatiotemporally controlled mechanical cues drive progenitor mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition enabling proper heart formation and function. Current Biology. 27: 1326–1335.

Describes a mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition (MET) in heart progenitor cells that is regulated by temporally specific mechanical cues originating from the endoderm. Accelerating or delaying MET by manipulating the mechanical microenvironment of the heart-forming region leads to abnormal heart anatomy
and function.

Newly Published: Chanet, S., Miller, C. J., Vaishnav, E. D., Ermentrout, B., Davidson, L. A. and Martin, A. C. (2017). Actomyosin meshwork mechanosensing enables tissue shape to orient cell force. Nature Communications 8. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038%2Fncomms15014

“Sculpting organism shape requires that cells produce forces with proper directionality. Thus, it is critical to understand how cells orient the cytoskeleton to produce forces that deform tissues.”

Newly Published: Davidson, L. A. (2017). Mechanical design in embryos: mechanical signalling, robustness and developmental defects. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 372, 20150516.

‘Embryology and morphology cannot proceed independently of all reference to the general laws of matter, to the laws of physics and of mechanics’.

—W. His in a letter to Professor Sir William Turner (1888) On the principles of animal morphology. Proc. R. Soc. Edinb. 15, 287–298.

New review published:  Vijayraghavan, D. S. and Davidson, L. A. (2016). Mechanics of neurulation: from classical to current perspectives on the physical mechanics that shape, fold, and form the neural tube. Birth defects research. Part A, Clinical and molecular teratology. DOI: 10.1002/bdra.23557 .