Geometric and network organization of visceral organ epithelium

Frontiers in Network Physiology

Network Physiology

Maximilian Ackermann¹  Hassan A. Khalil²  Betty S. Liu²  Steven J. Mentzer²  Joseph Sutlive²  Zi Chen²  Willi L. Wagner³ 

[1] Institute of Functional and Clinical Anatomy, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany;Laboratory of Adaptive and Regenerative Biology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States;Translational Lung Research Center, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany;

关键词: pleura;    epithelial cells;    connectivity (graph theory);    cell size;    visceral organ;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fnetp.2023.1144186

 received in 2023-01-13, accepted in 2023-04-27,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Mammalian epithelia form a continuous sheet of cells that line the surface of visceral organs. To analyze the epithelial organization of the heart, lung, liver and bowel, epithelial cells were labeled in situ, isolated as a single layer and imaged as large epithelial digitally combine montages. The stitched epithelial images were analyzed for geometric and network organization. Geometric analysis demonstrated a similar polygon distribution in all organs with the greatest variability in the heart epithelia. Notably, the normal liver and inflated lung demonstrated the largest average cell surface area (p < 0.01). In lung epithelia, characteristic wavy or interdigitated cell boundaries were observed. The prevalence of interdigitations increased with lung inflation. To complement the geometric analyses, the epithelia were converted into a network of cell-to-cell contacts. Using the open-source software EpiGraph, subgraph (graphlet) frequencies were used to characterize epithelial organization and compare to mathematical (Epi-Hexagon), random (Epi-Random) and natural (Epi-Voronoi5) patterns. As expected, the patterns of the lung epithelia were independent of lung volume. In contrast, liver epithelia demonstrated a pattern distinct from lung, heart and bowel epithelia (p < 0.05). We conclude that geometric and network analyses can be useful tools in characterizing fundamental differences in mammalian tissue topology and epithelial organization.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Liu, Sutlive, Wagner, Khalil, Chen, Ackermann and Mentzer.