title: Cell Chirality Induces Collective Cell Migration in Epithelial Sheets.
abstract: During early development, epithelial cells form a monolayer sheet and migrate in a uniform direction. Here, we address how this collective migration can occur without breaking the cell-to-cell attachments. Repeated contraction and expansion of the cell-to-cell interfaces enables the cells to rearrange their positions autonomously within the sheet. We show that when the interface tension is strengthened in a direction that is tilted from the body axis, cell rearrangements occur in such a way that unidirectional movement is induced. We use a vertex model to demonstrate that such anisotropic tension can generate the unidirectional motion of cell sheets. Our results suggest that cell chirality facilitates collective cell migration during tissue morphogenesis.
authors.affiliation: RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology, 2-2-3 Minatojima-minamimachi, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0047, Japan.|Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 001-0020, Japan.
authors.forename: Katsuhiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany.|Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Hongo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
authors.forename: Tetsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hiraiwa
authors.affiliation: RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology, 2-2-3 Minatojima-minamimachi, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0047, Japan.|RIKEN Quantitative Biology Center, Kobe 650-0047, Japan.
authors.forename: Tatsuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shibata
mesh_terms: D002448:Cell Adhesion / Q000502:physiology; D002450:Cell Communication / Q000502:physiology; D002465:Cell Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D048430:Cell Shape / Q000502:physiology; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D008954:Models, Biological