Journal
ELIFE
Volume 8, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELIFE SCIENCES PUBLICATIONS LTD
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.44860
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung [LiSyM-031L0038, SYSBIO II-031L0044]
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [EXC 1056]
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- H2020 European Research Council [695646]
- European Research Council (ERC) [695646] Funding Source: European Research Council (ERC)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Functional tissue architecture originates by self-assembly of distinct cell types, following tissue-specific rules of cell-cell interactions. In the liver, a structural model of the lobule was pioneered by Elias in 1949. This model, however, is in contrast with the apparent random 3D arrangement of hepatocytes. Since then, no significant progress has been made to derive the organizing principles of liver tissue. To solve this outstanding problem, we computationally reconstructed 3D tissue geometry from microscopy images of mouse liver tissue and analyzed it applying soft-condensed-matter-physics concepts. Surprisingly, analysis of the spatial organization of cell polarity revealed that hepatocytes are not randomly oriented but follow a long-range liquidcrystal order. This does not depend exclusively on hepatocytes receiving instructive signals by endothelial cells, since silencing Integrin-beta 1 disrupted both liquid-crystal order and organization of the sinusoidal network. Our results suggest that bi-directional communication between hepatocytes and sinusoids underlies the self-organization of liver tissue.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available