Meeting report − Intercellular interactions in context: towards a mechanistic understanding of cells in organs

Abstract

The Company of Biologists held the workshop 'Intercellular interactions in context: towards a mechanistic understanding of cells in organs' at historic Wiston House in West Sussex, UK, 5−8 February 2017. The meeting brought together around 30 scientists from disparate backgrounds − yet with a common interest of how tissue morphogenesis occurs and its dysregulation leads to pathologies − to intensively discuss their latest research, the current state of the field, as well as any challenges for the future. This report summarises the concepts and challenges that arose as key questions for the fields of cell, cancer and developmental biology. By design of the organizers − Andrew Ewald (John Hopkins University, MA), John Wallingford (University of Texas at Austin, TX) and Peter Friedl (Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) − the attendee makeup was cross-sectional: both in terms of career stage and scientific background. This intermingling was mirrored in the workshop format; all participants -irrespective of career stage − were given equal speaking and question time, and all early-career researchers also chaired a session, which promoted an atmosphere for discussions that were open, egalitarian and supportive. This was particularly evident in the scheduled 'out-ofthe-box' sessions, which provided an avenue for participants to raise ideas and concepts or to discuss specific problems they wanted feedback or clarification on. In the following, rather than act as court reporters and convey chronological accounting of presentations, we present the questions that arose from the workshop and should be posed to the field at large, by discussing the presentations as they relate to these concepts. Things in motion catch the eye sooner -development, cancer and migrationRecent advances in microscopy and culturing techniques were showcased throughout the workshop, and the talks addressing cellular and even subcellular migration were no exception. These presentations highlighted recent discoveries with regard to the pathways that regulate cytoskeletal dynamics, the mechanisms of collective cell migration and collective cell invasion, as well as the molecular and behavioural differences between cells in culture and cells in vivo. The discussions surrounding these presentations focused on three main questions.First, how well do our in vitro models of morphogenesis recapitulate in vivo events? This question seemed to pervade nearly every session of the workshop, and was addressed by a number of approaches. Building on previous studies (Tabler et al., 2013), Karen Liu (King's College London, UK) highlighted the essential role the environmental context plays in vivo by showing different populations of neural crest cells (NCCs) behave differently during migration. Tobias Zech (University of Liverpool, UK) presented a proteomics approach that identified differential protein interactions between 2D and 3D cultures, and provided evidence that 3D-specific adhesion sites are required for cell migration. These and several ad...