Live-modelling the temporal regulation of mesoderm specification
Pattern formation emerges during development from the interplay between gene regulatory networks (GRNs) acting at the single cell level and cell movements driving tissue level morphogenetic changes. As a result, the timing of cell specification and the dynamics of morphogenesis must be tightly cross-regulated. In the developing zebrafish, mesoderm progenitors will spend varying amounts of time (from 5 to 10hrs) in the tailbud before entering the pre-somitic mesoderm (PSM) and initiating a stereotypical transcriptional trajectory towards a mesodermal fate. In contrast, when dissociated and placed in vitro, these progenitors differentiate synchronously in around 5 hours. We have used a data-driven mathematical modelling approach to reverse-engineer a GRN that is able to tune the timing of mesodermal differentiation as progenitors leave the tailbud’s signalling environment, which also explains our in vitro observations. This GRN recapitulates pattern formation at the tissue level when modelled on cell tracks obtained from live-imaging a developing PSM. Our “live-modelling” framework also allows us to simulate how perturbations to the GRN affect the emergence of pattern in zebrafish mutants. We are now extending this analysis to cichlid fishes in order to explore the regulation of developmental time in evolution.
Date: 12 June 2020, 14:00
Venue: Mathematical Institute, Woodstock Road OX2 6GG
Speaker: Dr Berta Verd (University of Cambridge)
Organising department: Mathematical Institute
Organiser: Sara Jolliffe (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: sara.jolliffe@maths.ox.ac.uk
Host: Philip Maini (University of Oxford)
Part of: Mathematical Biology and Ecology
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Sara Jolliffe