FREEMAN , Matthew

Background: Most differentiating cells are arrested in G1-phase of the cell cycle and this proliferative quiescence appears important to allow differentiation programmes to be executed. An example occurs in the Drosophila eye imaginal disc, where all cells are synchronized and arrested in G1 phase prior to making a fate choice either to...

Live imaging has revolutionized the analysis of developmental biology over the last few years. The ability to track in real time the dynamic processes that occur at tissue and cellular levels gives a much clearer view of development, and allows greater temporal resolution, than is possible with fixed tissue. Drosophila imaginal discs are a...

The motor protein non-muscle myosin II is a major driver of the movements that sculpt three dimensional organs from two dimensional epithelia. The machinery of morphogenesis is well established but the logic of its control remains unclear in complex organs. Here we use live imaging and ex vivo culture to report a dual role of myosin II in...

The emergence of differences in the arrangement of cells is the first step towards the establishment of many organs. Understanding this process is limited by the lack of systematic characterization of epithelial organisation. Here we apply network theory at the scale of individual cells to uncover patterns in cell-to-cell contacts that govern...