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SYAN: Symposium Active nematics: From 2D to 3D
SYAN 1: Active nematics: From 2D to 3D
SYAN 1.4: Invited Talk
Friday, October 1, 2021, 11:45–12:15, Audimax 1
Liquid-crystal organization of liver tissue — •Benjamin M Friedrich1,2, Hernan Morales-Navarrete3, Andre Scholich4, Hidenori Nonaka3, Fabian Segovia Miranda3, Steffen Lange2,5, Jens Karschau2, Yannis Kalaidzidis3, Frank Jülicher4, and Marino Zerial3 — 1Physics of Life, TU Dresden, Germany — 2cfaed, TU Dresden, Germany — 3MPI CBG, Dresden, Germany — 4MPI PKS, Dresden, Germany — 5HTW, Dresden, Germany
Tissue function requires specific spatial organization of different cell types, yet should be flexible to allow for cell division and growth. Liquid-crystal order can serve this purpose. We present a general framework to quantify liquid-crystal order in 3D tissues and apply it to high-resolution imaging of mouse liver. We show that nematic cell polarity axes of hepatocytes (the main cell type in the liver) follow long-range liquid-crystal order. These tissue-level patterns of cell polarity are co-aligned with a structural anisotropy of two transport networks, blood-transporting sinusoids and bile-transporting canaliculi that intertwine the tissue. Silencing communication from hepatocytes to sinusoids via Integrin-β1 knockdown disrupted both liquid-crystal order of hepatocytes and organization of the sinusoidal network, suggesting that bi-directional communication between hepatocytes and sinusoids orchestrates tissue architecture. Using a network generation algorithm, we computationally explore the resilience of anisotropic sinusoidal networks to local damage, thus addressing the link between form and function in a complex tissue with biaxial liquid-crystal order.