Visualizing sub-cellular organization and dynamics across scales in developing tissues: from molecules to organelles

The dramatic morphing and sculpting of tissues in a developing embryo involve major coordinated re-arrangements and migration of thousands of constituent cells. Such collective behavior is enabled by appropriate polarization of cells and dynamic regulation of their adhesion to neighboring cells and the extracellular matrix. These processes require construction and remodeling of plasma membrane-associated signaling and adhesion platforms and re-arrangement of organellar and cytoskeletal networks. Crucially, these events must be regulated with high spatiotemporal precision within individual cells and tightly coordinated across neighboring cells to ensure robust tissue morphogenesis.For decades, extensive high/super- resolution microscopy-based studies in cultured cells in vitro have been shaping our understanding of critical sub-cellular processes corresponding to establishment of cell polarity, adhesion and collective migratory responses in cells. These investigations have revealed how signaling platforms and adhesion complexes assemble at the plasma membrane and how cytoskeletal and organelle architectures reorganize to support coordinated cellular behavior. However, little is known about how these processes manifest in cell within tissues in vivo. This knowledge gap largely arises from technical challenges of introducing most fluorescent probes and reporters into tissues and implementing advanced high/super-resolution and single molecule imaging techniques in complex tissue environments compared to simpler in vitro cell culture-based systems. The goal of this special issue is to curate the latest advancements in visualizing spatial and temporal organization and dynamics of signaling and adhesion proteins at the plasma membrane and tracking re-organization and dynamics of the underlying cytoskeleton and organelles in cells within tissues actively undergoing morphogenesis. By highlighting methodological innovations and biological discoveries, this issue seeks to bridge the gap between in vitro mechanistic insight and in vivo physiological relevance. Research topic will include original research, methods articles, reviews and perspectives encompassing the following areas:(A) Functional dissection of cell-membrane associated polarity, signaling and adhesion pathways operating in developing embryonic tissues and carried out using imaging-based approaches in in vivo models (B) Dynamics of cytoskeletal and organelle reorganization during tissue morphogenesis(C) Cell biological, biochemical and biophysical mechanisms underlying the manifestation of developmental/birth defects from disease-causing mutations(D) Development of new genetic and fluorescent probes and reporters to visualize aspects of sub-cellular dynamics, including organelles, cytoskeleton, membrane protein and lipid dynamics associated with cell polarization, adhesion and migration in vivo(E) Development and implementation of super-resolution or single molecule imaging approaches applied to tissues(F) Quantitative and computational approaches for analyzing spatial and temporal dynamics in tissues Topic editors: Parijat Sil, Thomas Sebastiaan Van Zanten, Bhaswati Bhattacharya Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79157/visualizing-sub-cellular-organization-and-dynamics-across-scales-in-developing-tissues-from-molecules-to-organelles