Handling Editor: Kathleen Green
ABSTRACT
Periodic pattern formation on the cellular and tissue scale is an important process and has been extensively studied. However, periodic pattern formation at the subcellular level still remains poorly understood. The C. elegans epidermis displays a highly ordered parallel stripe pattern as part of its subcellular structure, making it an ideal model to study the formation and reorganization of periodic patterns within cells. Here, we show that the initial formation of periodic striped patterns in the C. elegans epidermis is dependent on actin and spectrin, and requires the apical membrane attachment structures for maintenance. The periodic subcellular structures do not accommodate cell growth by continuously making new stripes. Instead, they increase the number of stripes by going through one round of uniform duplication, which is independent of the increasing epidermal length or the developmental cycles. This long-range synchronized reorganization of subcellular structures is achieved by physical links established by extracellular collagens together with extension forces generated from epidermal cell growth. Our studies uncover a novel strategy employed by evenly spaced and interlinked subcellular structures to maintain their integrity and equidistribution during cell growth and tissue development.
Footnotes
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing or financial interests.
Author contributions
Conceptualization: H.Z.; Validation: C.W., Y.Y.; Formal analysis: C.W.; Investigation: C.W., Y.Y., R.F.; Resources: Y.Z.; Data curation: R.F., Y.Z.; Writing - original draft: C.W., H.Z.; Writing - review & editing: H.Z.; Visualization: C.W., R.F.; Supervision: H.Z.; Funding acquisition: H.Z.
Funding
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31670912, 31871384 and 31900545), National Key R&D Program of China (2019YFA0802400), Jiangsu Provincial Distinguished Young Scholars (BK20160009), Jiangsu Provincial Innovative Research Team, the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (PCSIRT-IRT1075) and the Priority Academic Development Program of Jiangsu Province Higher Education Institutions (PAPD).
Supplementary information
Supplementary information available online at https://jcs.biologists.org/lookup/doi/10.1242/jcs.246793.supplemental
- Received March 25, 2020.
- Accepted October 1, 2020.
- © 2020. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
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