ArticleCell2021
Extracellular hyaluronate pressure shaped by cellular tethers drives tissue morphogenesis.
Article in Cell, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 65 papers.
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Who cites it
65 citing papers in PubMed, 102 citations in OpenAlex.
- The role of geometry in morphogenesis.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2026Review
- Mechanics of compression-driven morphogenesis.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2026Review
- Biophysics of lumen morphogenesis.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2026Review
- Cell and tissue mechanics in 3-D organ morphogenesis: Insights from Drosophila pupal retina development.Developmental biology · 2026Review
- Hydrostatic pressure shapes and canalizes semicircular canal morphology to ensure vestibular function.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Nr2f1a and Isl1 repress acquisition of epicardial identity in venous atrial cardiomyocytes.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2026Article
- Hyaluronan Underlies the Emergence of Form, Fate, and Function in Human Cardioids.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- A cross-tissue physicochemical causal chain underlying vertebrate mandibular morphogenesis.Science advances · 2026Article
- Ex vivo imaging reveals neutrophil behaviors in the adult zebrafish heart.Journal of cell science · 2026Article
- Piezo1-mediated mechanohydraulic control of cell volume drives cardiac morphogenesis.Science advances · 2026Article
- Boundary-guided cell alignment drives mouse epiblast maturation.Nature physics · 2026Article
- Permeability-driven pressure and cell proliferation control lumen morphogenesis in pancreatic organoids.Nature cell biology · 2026Article
- Identification of intestinal enteroendocrine cell subtypes and their associated hormones in zebrafish.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Convergent flow-mediated mesenchymal force drives embryonic foregut constriction and splitting.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Regulation of epithelial tissue homeostasis by active transepithelial transport.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- A self-limiting mechanotransduction feedback loop ensures robust organ formation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Matrix: a complex amalgam of structures and functions in tumor microenvironment.FEBS open bio · 2025Review
- Quantifying convergent extension: Shih and Keller's quintessential work in developmental cell biology.Developmental biology · 2025Article
- A single-cell transcriptomic atlas of inner ear morphogenesis in zebrafish.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Tissue-wide, synchronous Erk oscillations time the segmentation of the zebrafish notochord.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
5 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
How tissues acquire complex shapes is a fundamental question in biology and regenerative medicine. Zebrafish semicircular canals form from invaginations in the otic epithelium (buds) that extend and fuse to form the hubs of each canal. We find that conventional actomyosin-driven behaviors are not required. Instead, local secretion of hyaluronan, made by the enzymes uridine 5'-diphosphate dehydrogenase (ugdh) and hyaluronan synthase 3 (has3), drives canal morphogenesis. Charged hyaluronate polymers osmotically swell with water and generate isotropic extracellular pressure to deform the overlying epithelium into buds. The mechanical anisotropy needed to shape buds into tubes is conferred by a polarized distribution of actomyosin and E-cadherin-rich membrane tethers, which we term cytocinches. Most work on tissue morphogenesis ascribes actomyosin contractility as the driving force, while the extracellular matrix shapes tissues through differential stiffness. Our work inverts this expectation. Hyaluronate pressure shaped by anisotropic tissue stiffness may be a widespread mechanism for powering morphological change in organogenesis and tissue engineering.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.