Josep Mercadal
@josepmercadal
Physicist attempting biology. Postdoc at the MPIPZ Cologne. Interested in development, evolution, and philosophy. He/him.
Our framework provides an explanation for lineage-specific phenotypic transitions—such as the complete loss of oil bodies or the shift from ubiquitous to patterned oil body cells—as outcomes of a conserved patterning module that has been repurposed over evolutionary time.
But not only that: we found that the same mechanism could explain oil body cell patterns in extant taxa, suggesting that the patterning mechanism has been conserved during liverwort evolution!
Using quantitative spatial statistics and mathematical modeling, we were able to show that these patterns are consistent with a mechanism of cell patterning involving local activation and lateral inhibition (for the mathematically-inclined, this included cool results using bifurcation theory).
Enter the oldest known fossil liverwort, Metzgeriothallus sharonae (ca. 388 Ma). These exceptionally well-preserved fossils allow us to distinguish different cell types. Dark cells (homologs of oil body cells of modern liverworts) form salt-and-pepper patterns, a hallmark of lateral inhibition.
Our framework provides an explanation for lineage-specific phenotypic transitions—such as the complete loss of oil bodies or the shift from ubiquitous to patterned oil body cells—as outcomes of a conserved patterning module that has been repurposed over evolutionary time.
But not only that: we found that the same mechanism could explain oil body cell patterns in extant taxa, suggesting that the patterning mechanism has been conserved during liverwort evolution!
Using quantitative spatial statistics and mathematical modeling, we were able to show that these patterns are consistent with a mechanism of cell patterning involving local activation and lateral inhibition (for the mathematically-inclined, this included cool results using bifurcation theory).
Enter the oldest known fossil liverwort, Metzgeriothallus sharonae (ca. 388 Ma). These exceptionally well-preserved fossils allow us to distinguish different cell types. Dark cells (homologs of oil body cells of modern liverworts) form salt-and-pepper patterns, a hallmark of lateral inhibition.
The four days of "Theory and concepts in biology" finish with a round table discussion on biology's biggest challenges. Some common themes emerged: how to deal with biological complexity? How to understand levels of organization? Which features make life unique? #EESTCBio @events.embl.org