On mechanical phase and form

Windie Höfs; Sara A Wickström

doi:10.1016/j.cell.2024.04.045

On mechanical phase and form

Cell. 2024 Jun 6;187(12):2898-2900. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.04.045.

Authors

Windie Höfs¹, Sara A Wickström²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Cell and Tissue Dynamics, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Münster, Germany.
² Department of Cell and Tissue Dynamics, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Münster, Germany; Stem Cells and Metabolism Research Program, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Helsinki Institute of Life Science, Biomedicum Helsinki, University of Helsinki, 00290 Helsinki, Finland. Electronic address: [email protected].

PMID: 38848672
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.04.045

Abstract

Epithelial folding is a fundamental biological process that requires epithelial interactions with the underlying mesenchyme. In this issue of Cell, Huycke et al. investigate intestinal villus formation. They discover that water-droplet-like behavior of mesenchymal cells drives their coalescence into uniformly patterned aggregates, which generate forces on the epithelium to initiate folding.

MeSH terms

Animals
Epithelial Cells / cytology
Epithelial Cells / metabolism
Epithelium* / metabolism
Humans
Intestinal Mucosa / cytology
Intestinal Mucosa / metabolism
Mesoderm* / cytology
Mesoderm* / metabolism