How to Build an Eye - Dissecting the coordination between cellular rearrangements and the interplay with material properties of the tissue during Optic Cup Morphogenesis

Organogenesis arises from the collective arrangement of cells into a progressively 3D shaped tissue.

The acquisition of a correct shaped organ is a result of a complex interplay between molecular cues, responsible for differentiation and patterning, and the mechanical properties of the system, which generate the necessary forces that drive correct shape emergence.

Therefore, it is important to understand how the cross talk between these two players leads to changes in cell behaviours and how these changes are translated into epithelial sheet movement and, consequently, to morphogenesis.

This project aims to contribute to a global understanding of shape formation during organogenesis, by using the vertebrate retina as a model system.

I will use the zebrafish optic cup, with its unmatched possibilities for in vivo 3D imaging and manipulation, to dissect the biomechanical events at single cell level, that collectively lead to shape emergence.

I will then test if the identified crosstalk of morphogenetic events is kept in other time scales of optic cup formation, by studying a slower developing organism.

Alongside with experimental approaches, a physical model of the mechanics and shape dynamics of OCF, based on the experimental data of morphological changes, will be generated and experimentally tested.

The multidisciplinary approach of this project and the revealed mechanisms of OCF in 3D will have the potential to be applied in other morphogenetic studies of 3D curved tissues.