Branching morphogenesis
Branching morphogenesis is an important mechanism of animal development yet, until recently, most details about this highly dynamic process have had to be inferred from fixed tissues.
Transgenic animals have been developped in which branching tubules express fluorescent proteins, enabling their morphogenesis to be studied dynamically using time-lapse microscopy.
The results have shown that branch emergence is highly variable, that sprouting tracheae and blood vessels guide themselves by filopodial projections, that branching morphogenesis can involve highly ordered cell rearrangements, and that branches are subject to intense remodelling.
Though they are very new, these fluorescent systems have already expanded our knowledge of branching morphogenesis; future work, in which fluorescence might be used to report processes in addition to anatomy, promises an even greater advance.
Types of branching morphogenesis
vascular branching morphogenesis
glandular branching morphogenesis
tubular branching morphogenesis
See also
branching morphogenesis
renal tubulogenesis
References
Davies JA. Watching tubules glow and branch. Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2005 Aug;15(4):364-70. PMID: 15964757
Warburton D, Bellusci S, De Langhe S, Del Moral PM, Fleury V, Mailleux A, Tefft D, Unbekandt M, Wang K, Shi W. Molecular mechanisms of early lung specification and branching morphogenesis. Pediatr Res. 2005 May;57(5 Pt 2):26R-37R. PMID: 15817505
Affolter M, Bellusci S, Itoh N, Shilo B, Thiery JP, Werb Z. Tube or not tube: remodeling epithelial tissues by branching morphogenesis. Dev Cell. 2003 Jan;4(1):11-8. PMID: 12530959
Dor Y, Djonov V, Keshet E. Making vascular networks in the adult: branching morphogenesis without a roadmap. Trends Cell Biol. 2003 Mar;13(3):131-6. PMID: 12628345
Chuang PT, McMahon AP. Branching morphogenesis of the lung: new molecular insights into an old problem. Trends Cell Biol. 2003 Feb;13(2):86-91. PMID: 12559759