Tissue self-organization based on collective cell migration by contact activation of locomotion and chemotaxis

Abstract

14Despite their central role in multicellular organization, navigation rules that dictate cell rearrangement 15 remain much to be elucidated. Contact between neighboring cells and diffusive attractant molecules 16 are two of the major determinants of tissue-level patterning, however in most cases, molecular and 17 developmental complexity hinders one from decoding the exact governing rules of individual cell 18 movement. A primordial example of tissue patterning by cell rearrangement is found in the social 19 amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum where the organizing center or the 'tip' self-organize as a result of 20 sorting of differentiating prestalk and prespore cells. Due to its relatively simple and conditional 21 multicellularity, the system provides a rare case where the process can be fully dissected into individual 22