Morphology

Recently there have appeared some interesting works on biological morphology development. They help us understanding how a particular pattern, e.g., fingerprints and intestine, comes about under basic mechanical laws [http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v7/n9/full/nphys2088.html?WT.ec_id=NPHYS-201109].

Thierry Savin and colleagues refer to Thompson's tome in their investigation, published in Nature, of the elaborate looped morphology that arises in the vertebrate gut (Nature 476, 57–62; 2011). Using experiment, simulation, and an innovative physical mock-up comprising rubber tubing stitched to latex, they have examined the forces arising from relative growth between the gut tube and a neighbouring sheet of tissue known as the dorsal mesentery. The study reveals a mechanism for the formation of loops based on differential strain between the two tissues.

© SPL

This is a timely nod to Thompson's century-old ideas, given the recent surge of physicists and mathematicians into the biological sciences, problem-solving artillery engaged. In another paper, published in Physical Review Letters, Edouard Hannezo, Jacques Prost and Jean-Francçois Joanny adopt a similarly mechanical approach to understanding the complex structures seen lining the small intestine (pictured), invoking an analogy with the buckling of metallic plates under compression (Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 078104; 2011). They have developed a model that implicates cellular division and death as sources of internal stress, which in turn influences morphology and induces mechanical feedback on organ and tissue development.