Mechanisms of Morphogenesis

by Jamie A. Davies

Overview

Mechanisms of Morphogenesis, Third Edition offers a bottom-up discussion of mechanisms of cell and tissue morphogenesis in a diverse array of organisms, including prokaryotes, animals, plants and fungi. Across foundational, applied and methods-based chapters, this book examines molecular nano-machines cooperation, generate cell shape, direct cell migration, and shape, form and rates of growth of various tissues in the body. Each topic is illustrated with experimental data from real systems, with particular reference to gaps in current knowledge and likely future developments, along with strategies to apply basic morphogenesis science across ever evolving applications.

Newly added chapters feature case-study-driven discussions of morphogenesis in natural embryos and organoids, and illustrate how pathological morphogenesis can generate variants of body form. This edition has also been updated with analysis of large-scale and scale-invariant mechanisms, for example, morphogenesis by differential growth in mechanically connected tissues.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780323999656
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	06/14/2023
Edition description:	3rd ed.
Pages:	532
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Since 1995 Davies has run his own laboratory at the University of Edinburgh, with a multidisciplinary focus on discovering how mammalian organs construct themselves and how we can use apply knowledge to build new tissues and organs for those in need. Some of the work of his 20-strong research team is 'conventional' developmental biology; identifying signals and mechanisms used in natural organ development. Some is bioinformatic analysis (we host the editorial office of an international database for renal development – www.gudmap.org – funded by the USA National Institutes of Health, and the www.guidetopharmacology.org database, an international effort for the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology). Some of his work is in tissue engineering – his lab has recently developed a method to produce engineered 'fetal kidneys' from simple suspensions of stem cells, an activity that attracted considerable press attention last year. Finally, his lab is pioneering the application of synthetic biology techniques to tissue engineering, to 'program' cells to make structures that are designed rather than evolved.

Davies has published around 140 research papers in the field of mammalian development, has published one major specialist monograph (Mechanisms of Morphogenesis, Elsevier, 2005 2nd Ed 2014), one public engagement book (Life Unfoloding, OUP, 2013 (Hardback), 2015 (paperback), now in translation also) and has edited three multi-author books in the fields of development, stem cells and tissue engineering. His contributions to research and teaching in this area have been recognized by having been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Davies served as Deputy Chair of the National Centre for 3Rs, a government agency that promotes research that refines, reduces or replaces animal experiments. He has also served as Editor-in-Chief of the research journal Organogenesis for 8 years, and is currently an Editor of Journal of Anatomy and PLOS One.

Table of Contents

Section I: Introduction
1. General introduction – the aims and structure of this book.
2. Key principles of morphogenesis
3. The power and limitations of self-assembly

Section II: Cell shape and the cell morphogenesis
4. Morphogenesis of individual cells
5. Animal cell shape: the importance of the cytoskeleton
6. Cellular morphogenesis in plants

Section III: Cell Migration
7. Cell migration in development: a brief overview
8. The nanomachinery of locomotion
9. Guidance by chemotaxis
10. Guidance by galvanotaxis
11. Guidance by contact
12. Waypoint navigation in the embryo
13. Cooperative migration of mesenchymal cells
14. Condensation of cells

Section IV: Epithelial Morphogenesis
15. The epithelial state: a brief overview
16. Neighbour exchange and convergent extension
17. Closure of holes
18. Invagination and evagination
19. Epithelial fusion
20. Epithelial branching
21. Boundaries to epithelial movement

Section V: Morphogenesis by cell proliferation and death
22. Growth, proliferation and death: a brief overview
23. Morphogenesis by orientated cell division
24. Morphogenesis by elective cell death

Section VI: Morphogenesis in context
25. From mechanisms to morphology: a brief overview
26. Morphogenesis in embryos: some illustrative examples
27. Morphogenesis in organoids, embryoids and engineered tissues
28. Pathological morphogenesis

Section VII: Modelling morphogenesis
29. Modelling morphogenesis: a brief overview
30. Mechanical and mathematical models of morphogenesis
31. Modelling using living cells – tissue engineering and synthetic morphology

Section VIII: Conclusion and perspectives
32. Conclusion and perspectives

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

An outstanding reference with up-to-date knowledge and approaches in morphogenesis.

Editorial Reviews

"Davies retains from the first edition the concentration on morphogenesis itself…with other aspects of development taken for granted, and the organization that progresses in size from the sub-cellular systems critical for larger scale morphogenesis to mechanisms that concern whole population of cells… to keep the textbook manageable, he has presented some material more succinctly, such as the morphogenesis of sub-cellular structures." —ProtoView.com, January 2014

From the Publisher