In work conducted both at UC Santa Barbara and the Physics of Life Excellence Cluster of TU Dresden, biophysicist Otger Campàs and his research group have found that cell nuclei control the architecture and mechanics of eye and brain tissues during embryonic development. These results add a new role for the cell's nucleus in tissue organization, well beyond its established role in genetic regulation. "We were measuring tissue stiffness in the zebrafish retina, and realized that it depended on the packing of nuclei.
This was totally unexpected because tissue mechanics is believed to depend on cell surface interactions, but not organelles inside cells," said Campàs, now professor and the chair of tissue dynamics at the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life at TU Dresden, where he also serves as managing director. This research, published in the journal Nature Materials, represents an unexplored avenue to understand how cells orchestrate embryonic development. The hidden architect Inside each cell, individual structures known as organelles perform key functions, but how these organelles contribute to the formation of tissues and organs is unknown.
Like factories or roads in cities, myriad organelles perform tasks inside cells for them to properly function. Because they are confined within cells, organelles were not believed to play a direct role in building organs during embryogenesis. Until now.
The cell's nucleus is an organelle known for processing information in cells, w.