ABOVE: Fruit fly epithelial cells (pseudo colored in this micrograph) work together during development to ensure that even when cells die, gaps don’t form in the tissue.
© ROMAIN LEVAYER
The paper
L. Valon et al., “Robustness of epithelial sealing is an emerging property of local ERK feedback driven by cell elimination,” Dev Cell,
doi:10.1016/j.devcel.2021.05.006, 2021.
As the body’s first line of defense against microbial intruders, epithelial cells are known for their ability to form tight physical and chemical barriers in tissues. But just how they maintain these barriers, often only a single cell layer thick, continues to intrigue researchers. Romain Levayer, a cell and developmental biologist at the Institut Pasteur in France, and his colleagues were particularly interested in how epithelial cells are able to balance their plasticity and high turnover with maintaining a robust barrier. After all, says Levayer, “if you have a gap . . . you can’t ...
