Figure 2: Tissue shape is critical for proper cell shape changes.
From: Actomyosin meshwork mechanosensing enables tissue shape to orient cell force
(a) Mean apical cell area over time calculated for Ctr-RNAi (n=119 cells, 2 embryos), Spn27A-RNAi (n=134 cells, 2 embryos) and Fat2-RNAi (n=418 cells, 3 embryos) embryos during VF formation. Shaded area indicates s.d. (b) Images of VF cell outlines in live embryos depleted for the indicated gene before and 5 min after the onset of cell constrictions. (c) Box-and-whisker plots of cell anisotropy 7 min after the onset of cell constriction for the embryos analysed in a. Cell anisotropy is the length of the cell along the horizontal axis divided by the vertical length, such that cells elongated along the a-p axis exhibit anisotropy >1. Isotropic is anisotropy=1. (d) Injection of arm-RNAi locally induced tissue tears (dotted lines) that disrupted tissue integrity. Cell constriction was followed for cells between tears (asterisks). (e) Mean apical area over time for 16 Ctr-RNAi, 18 Spn27A-RNAi and 15 Fat2-RNAi constricting cells between tears after arm-RNAi injection. Shaded area indicates s.d. Scale bars, 10 μm. ***P<0.001, t-test.
