Mechanical forces are known to play an important role in collective cell migration and morphogenesis. Our understanding of mechanical regulation in these processes are limited by the lack of techniques to measure mechanical forces in vivo. I developed an imaging-based technique, termed mechanical inference, to infer mechanical forces based on cell geometry in epithelial tissues. This method has been validated with laser ablation experiments in drosophila embryo and provides a high throughput approach to map out mechanical forces in vivo. Using this method, we discovered dinstinct contributions of tensile and shear stress on E-cadherin levels during morphogenesis of drosophila embryonic development.
The future objective of this project is to combine mechanical inference with metabolic flux inference to study the interplay of energy dissipation, tissue mechanics and collective cell migration.
The future objective of this project is to combine mechanical inference with metabolic flux inference to study the interplay of energy dissipation, tissue mechanics and collective cell migration.