Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Oscillations (Oscillatory signaling dynamics – a quantitative approach to reveal their origin and function in development)
Teaser
Summary: This project aims to reveal the origin and functions of spatiotemporal signalling oscillations in the context of embryonic development. Vertebrate embryo segmentation offers a particularly suitable context to study an assembly of ultradian, genetic oscillators, which...
Summary
Summary: This project aims to reveal the origin and functions of spatiotemporal signalling oscillations in the context of embryonic development. Vertebrate embryo segmentation offers a particularly suitable context to study an assembly of ultradian, genetic oscillators, which in addition, exhibit striking synchronization that generates periodic, wave-like patterns.
Understanding signalling dynamics, such as oscillations, is of fundamental importance. It is increasingly appreciated that the encoding of information at the level signalling dynamics is a general principle found across biology. The overall objective of this project is hence to elucidate the working principles of oscillation dynamics first in one specific context, segmentation, during vertebrate embryo development.
The questions we are addressing are:
• How are genetic oscillators synchronized within a tissue?
• How do spatiotemporal wave patterns originate and what function do they play during embryonic segmentation?
• What is the role of relative timing (i.e. phase-shift) between different oscillatory pathways?
• How do genetic oscillators self-organize?
Work performed
The findings regarding the self-organization of genetic oscillators have been published in 2016 in the CELL (Tsiairis and Aulehla, Cell 2016). The main findings are that a randomized ensemble of oscillating cells (oscillations are seen at the level of Notch-signalling pathway activity) will re-synchronize de novo, showing a collective, emerging frequency that corresponds to the average frequency of the input. In addition, even spatio-temporal order and wave patterns re-emerge de novo. This setup exhibiting self-organization and collective synchronization serves now as new experimental model to further reveal the underlying principles. How are spatial and temporal self-organization linked? What is the role of Wnt-signalling oscillations? What is the role of boundary conditions? We are in the process of addressing this questions.
• How do periodic wave patterns originate, either during self-organization or during embryonic development?
We have established a novel experimental setup that enables, for the first time, to visualize the onset of oscillatory wave patterns during early gastrulation, i.e. during the time period when mesoderm cells are first generated. To this end, we have implemented light-sheet microscopy methods that we currently use to visualize and quantify signalling dynamics in early mouse embryo development.
• What is the role of relative timing (i.e. phase-shift) between different oscillatory pathways?
• We have established a novel approach based on microfluidics to control the rhythm of segmentation clock oscillations. This approach, which exploits the principles of entrainment, opens the possibility to specifically enquire the role of dynamics and rhythm, without affecting overall signalling levels. We are very actively engaged in testing the consequences of altered timing between the relative timing of Notch- and Wnt-signalling oscillations on the segmentation process.
• We have intensified the theoretical work within the lab and have recruited theoretical physicist working on modeling the observed phenomena. This
• We have established Medaka as a novel experimental fish model in the lab and are in the process of generating knock-in reporter fish lines.
Final results
We have established a microfluidics-based entrainment approach that enables to control the rhythm of segmentation clock oscillations. This is an important step forward for the field, as we can now specifically address the role of timing of Notch-, Wnt- and Fgf-signalling pathway oscillations, including the role of their relative timing within cells in the PSM. In addition, we have established a novel system that enables to monitor signalling oscillations during early mouse gastrulation, using light-sheet microscopy, with high spatial and temporal resolution. This is another major achievement that now enables to address the origin of synchronized oscillatory signalling behaviour in the multicellular developmental context.