Complex organ shapes arise from the coordinate actions of individual cells. The Drosophila egg chamber is an organ-like structure that lengthens along its anterior-posterior axis as it grows. This morphogenesis depends on an unusual form of planar polarity in the organ's outer epithelial layer, the follicle cells. Interestingly, this epithelium also undergoes a directed migration that causes th...

Epithelia containing multiciliated cells align beating cilia along a common planar axis specified by the conserved planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway. Specification of the planar axis is also thought to require a long-range cue to align the axis globally, but the nature of this cue in ciliated and other epithelia remains poorly understood. We examined this issue using the Xenopus larval skin, w...

Many epithelial cells are polarized along the plane of the epithelium, a property termed planar cell polarity. The Drosophila wing and eye imaginal discs are the premier models of this process. Many proteins required for polarity establishment and its translation into cytoskeletal polarity were identified from studies of those tissues. More recently, several vertebrate tissues have been shown t...

Converting chemical energy into electricity is done by an electro-chemical device known as a fuel cell. Thermal stress is caused at high operating temperature between 700 oC to 1000 oC of SOFC. Thermal stress causes gas escape, structure variability, crack initiation, crack propagation, and cease operation of the SOFC before its lifetime. The aim of this study is to presen...

The mechanisms of planar cell polarity are being revealed by genetic analysis. Recent studies have provided new insights into interactions between three proteins involved in planar cell polarity: Flamingo, Frizzled and Van Gogh.

Introduction: Hemangiomas are the most frequent benign tumors of the liver and detecting them from metastasis or other malignant hepatic tumors is of outmost importance. 99mTc- RBC scan is highly specific and is the method of choice for this differentiation. This scintigraphy is performed in Planar and SPECT modes. These two procedures are in agreement most of the times, however since SPE...

Actomyosin contraction generates mechanical forces that influence cell and tissue structure. During convergent extension in Drosophila melanogaster, the spatially regulated activity of the myosin activator Rho-kinase promotes actomyosin contraction at specific planar cell boundaries to produce polarized cell rearrangement. The mechanisms that direct localized Rho-kinase activity are not well un...