Quantification of Rotational Dynamics in Drosophila Collective Border Cell Migration

Roy, Tuhin (2023) Quantification of Rotational Dynamics in Drosophila Collective Border Cell Migration. Masters thesis, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata.

Text (MS dissertation of Tuhin Roy (18MS026)) Thesis_18MS026.pdf - Submitted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (1MB)

Abstract

Understanding the complex motion of cells is essential to decipher their role in animal development. It demands an interdisciplinary approach combining tools from various research fields — the analysis of experimental data and simultaneous theoretical modelling from the core systems-level understanding of the collective cell motility. Here, we systematically quantified the cell migration in the egg chamber of Drosophila Melanogloster to gain a mechanistic understanding of this migration. We used microscopy techniques, physics-based numerical tools, and image analysis. Drosophila or fruit fly egg chamber is composed of 15 nurse cells, an oocyte, and various follicle cells. At the early 9th developmental stage, few follicle cells change the cell fate and form a border cell cluster, which generally migrates as a unified body. This migration has important physiological significance. Genetic and imaging investigations have shown crucial physiological variables influencing border cell migration. Our overarching goal was to measure the border cells' tumbling or rotational dynamics, a hallmark of this migration, before creating a computation-based simulation model based on our observations. Initially, we established a protocol for image capture, created the necessary experimental lines, and carried out in vitro 3D live imaging of border cell movement. To quantify the tumbling motion, we measured how often border cells in the cluster switched the `leader-trailer' positions during migration. Our findings imply that the nurse cell junction plays a significant mechanical part in flipping leader cell identities. In the future, we also aim to check the hypothesis of whether the spatial distribution of guidance cues in nurse cell junctions modulates the rotational motion.

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