Geometric control of intracellular patterning

Abstract

Living matter shows an impressive architectural ability -starting from molecules that must react to their nanometer-scale local environment, structures are robustly generated on both the cellular scale (10's of µm) and the tissue scale (meters). To appreciate these scales, one may imagine that molecules assembling a cytokinetic ring at the center of a 10 µm cell is analogous to a group of people meeting at the precise center of New York City while walking with a blindfold on. This would rarely occur by chance, and instead information about instantaneous position relative to the city must be made available locally to each person. The concept of a positional information field permeating living cells and tissues has long been appreciated [1].