Speaker
Description
Epithelial cells display apical membrane protrusions with diverse morphologies and organizations, including microvilli and microridges. Microvilli have been well-reported, which protrude from dots. In contrast, microridges are less studied, which protrude from lines. The lines are often arranged in maze-like patterns. Microridges are found on the superficial epithelial cells (SEC) of zebrafish. We observe microridge patterns of SECs on the scale of adult fish, various regions of larvae, and adult fish. We found that as the fish become more mature, there are denser microridges. When we induced cell movement through wound healing, we observed a microridge-to-microvilli transition as cells increased in apical area. A similar transition was seen in larvae from 3 to 5 dpf. We also develop an image analysis pipeline to quantify the microridges. Through super-resolution microscopy, we will also measure the height of microridges. We also plan to measure tension of the SEC tissue and membrane tension with advanced microscopy. Together with the quantitative measurement and pharmaceutical perturbation, we plan to combine with a theoretical model to understand the physical factors that regulate the microridge height and patterns.
