Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jul 22;122(29):e2418111122.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2418111122. Epub 2025 Jul 15.

Dynamic forces drive cell and organ morphology changes during embryonic development

Raj Kumar Manna #  1   2   3 , Emma M Retzlaff #  4 , Anna Maria Hinman  4 , Yiling Lan  2   5 , Osama Abdel-Razek  4 , Mike Bates  5 , Heidi Hehnly  2   5 , Jeffrey D Amack  2   4 , M Lisa Manning  1   2
Affiliations

Dynamic forces drive cell and organ morphology changes during embryonic development

Raj Kumar Manna et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Cells, tissues, and organs must change shape in precise ways during embryonic development to execute their functions. Multiple mechanisms including biochemical signaling pathways and biophysical forces help drive these morphology changes, but it has been difficult to tease apart their contributions, especially from tissue-scale dynamic forces that are typically ignored. We use a combination of mathematical models and in vivo experiments to study a simple organ in the zebrafish embryo called Kupffer's vesicle (KV). Modeling indicates that dynamic forces generated by tissue movements in the embryo produce shape changes in KV that are observed during development. Laser ablations in the zebrafish embryo that alter these forces result in altered organ shapes matching model predictions. These results demonstrate that dynamic forces sculpt cell and organ shape during embryo development.

Keywords: embryonic development; left–right patterning; mathematical models; morphogenesis; tissue mechanics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests statement:The authors declare no competing interest.

Update of

References

    1. Thompson D. A., On Growth and Form (Nature Publishing Group UK London, 1917).
    1. Farhadifar R., Röper J.-C., Aigouy B., Eaton S., Jülicher F., The influence of cell mechanics, cell-cell interactions, and proliferation on epithelial packing. Curr. Biol. 17, 2095–2104 (2007). - PubMed
    1. Petridou N. I., Corominas-Murtra B., Heisenberg C.-P., Hannezo E., Rigidity percolation uncovers a structural basis for embryonic tissue phase transitions. Cell 184, 1914–1928.e1919 (2021). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wang X., et al. , Anisotropy links cell shapes to tissue flow during convergent extension. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 117, 13541–13551 (2020). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hufnagel L., Teleman A., Rouault H., Cohen S., Shraiman B., On the mechanism of wing size determination in fly development. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 104, 3835 (2007). - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources