Persistent cell contacts enable E-cadherin/HMR-1- and PAR-3-based symmetry breaking within a developing C. elegans epithelium.

ABSTRACT: Tissue-wide patterning is essential to multicellular development, requiring cells to individually generate polarity axes and coordinate them in space and time with neighbors. Using the C. elegans intestinal epithelium, we identified a patterning mechanism that is informed by cell contact lifetime asymmetry and executed via the scaffolding protein PAR-3 and the transmembrane protein E-cadherin/HMR-1. Intestinal cells break symmetry as PAR-3 and HMR-1 recruit apical determinants into punctate "local polarity complexes" (LPCs) at homotypic contacts. LPCs undergo an HMR-1-based migration to a common midline, thereby establishing tissue-wide polarity. Thus, symmetry breaking results from PAR-3-dependent intracellular polarization coupled to HMR-1-based tissue-level communication, which occurs t

SUBMITTER: Naturale VF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10592304 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature