Growth and shaping of the fin and limb buds

Finite Element Methods for Investigating the Moving Boundary Problem in Biological Development

“…It is the integration of this free boundary value problem that we study below. This mathematical model agrees favorably with the analysis presented in [3] based on biological experiments where the limb is considered as a homogeneous and highly hydrated core embedded in an dense envelope.…”

Mechanical transformations of living cavitary bodies

“…This may be the case even in the limb buds of tetrapods, which are usually packed with cells. For instance, the distal limb segment (the finlet) of the larvae of the Siberian salamander (Salamandrella) contains few cells but grows very fast (Borkhvardt, 1994(Borkhvardt, , 2000. These examples clearly indicate that the cells do not exert a direct mechanical impact on the ectoderm.…”

“…3D). Fibres and cells connecting contralateral walls of cavities and preventing them from diverging have been called linkers (Borkhvardt, 2000). They play, of course, a passive role, which is expressed only in the process of the inner mass growth and the centrifugal movement of the sheath induced by it.…”

On “Growth and Form” and ASAPbio reform (Editorial)

“…The biomechanical paper by Valentin Borkhvardt (see pages 103-155) that we publish in this issue of Biological Communications (Borkhvardt, 2017) is also written as a wide theoretical generalization and might be compared in style and the widths to Thompson's book; hence it is a seamless addition to the theoretical disputes so numerous in this commemorative year. Borkhvardt's hydromechanical theory was initially based on empirical observations on the growth of vertebrate limb buds (Borkhvardt, 2000) providing a convincing hypothesis of how interactions of the mesenchymal inner cell mass within the limb bud, its ectodermal sheath and the collagen fibers that link the opposite walls of the bud produce its final form. Although somewhat similar thoughts on a possible mechanical role of the ectoderm have been put forward in early reports on chick limb bud growth and morphogenesis (e.g., Hornbruch and Wolpert, 1970), they were not that clearly formulated and were not integrated to other biomechanical issues; hence, rejected (probably prematurely) by later experimenters (see Boehm et al, 2010 for discussion).…”