Abstract
Epithelial tissue constitutes many kinds of organs of multicellular organisms. During morphogenesis, tissue deformation is driven by forces generated by cell activities such as cell proliferation, cell migration and apical constriction. Because shape of organs is accomplished appropriately by a series of tissue deformation, force generation at cell level can be controlled by a result of tissue shaping in a feedback manner. As such a mechanism, we suggest a function of modifying apical constriction in response to cell shape change by mechanosensitivity of alpha-catenin, leading to the feedback relationship between apical constriction and cell shape. In this study, we construct a mathematical model of the feedback relationship and investigate its role in formation of tissue shape. Simulation results suggest that the modification is based on the shapes of adjacent cells, and that the function maintains smooth surface on apical surface of epithelial tissue by averaging the cell shapes.
