How do tissues safely remove cells? Join me, @marija-matejcic.bsky.social in this perspective on the past, present and future of epithelial cell extrusion 🧵 0/16
Xavier Trepat
@xaviertrepat.bsky.social
Scientist of Living Matter. ICREA Professor at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, Barcelona. The need to know.
Our latest work on shape-programmable tissues is out in @science.org. By positioning topological defects in cellular nematics, we encode frustrated 2D force fields that relax into predictable 3D shapes. Collaboration with Marino Arroyo’s lab, led by @pauguillamat.bsky.social at @ibecbarcelona.eu.
Since #durotaxis was described >25 years ago, most studies report cells migrating from soft → stiff New work from my team at @ub.edu (in collaboration with D. Odde's lab) suggests we may have been missing the point all along... 🔥 Check out our new preprint here 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
International Congress in Biological Physics, Genova, Italy, 28 June to 3 July 2026. URGENT: submission deadline 25 March. Session topics, plenary and invited speakers: www.icbp2026.org IUPAP Physics of Life medal awarded at meeting. Spread the word - and act quickly to submit your work.
ICBP 2026
We proudly invite experts in biological physics worldwide to the International Conference on Biological Physics 2026 (ICBP 2026) in the magnificent Italian city of Genoa from June 28 to July 5, 2026
icbp2026.org
Less than a week to submit your abstract for #EESMechanobiology. Mechanobiology across the tree of life, from HeLa cells to weird animals and plants. The submission deadline is 3 March: s.embl.org/ees26-06-bl 🗓️ 9 – 12 June 2026
Best possible lab for a PhD / postdoc! Stay tuned for future openings and wonderful science.
Carlos Pérez-González@cperez-gonzalez.bsky.social · 6mo agoI’m thrilled to share that I will join @gustaveroussy.fr as a Group Leader! Our objective: to understand how mechanochemical feedbacks regulate tumor dynamics and plasticity, with the overarching goal of bridging tissue mechanobiology and tumor pathophysiology using human organoids.
🚨Our first talk this new year would be a joint theory/experiment talk by Prof. Marino Arroyo and Prof. Xavier Trepat @xaviertrepat.bsky.social describing some of their recent work together on active morphogenesis🧫. Sign up to our mailing list for a zoom link to this talk and other upcoming talks🚨
📢 New extended abstract submission deadline: 6 January 2026! Outstanding speaker list, plus many slots for short talks by students, postdocs, and junior PIs. Join us in March in Barcelona! events.ibecbarcelona.eu/embl-ibec-co...
📣Announcing the 4th edition of the EMBL‑IBEC Conference on “Engineering Multicellular Systems”, taking place 11–13 March 2026 in Barcelona. Exploring organoids, mechanobiology, embryo models, organ-on-chip systems, multiomics and more. Abstracts open now! events.ibecbarcelona.eu/embl-ibec-co...
New Review! #devbiol #bioelectricity #CellBiology #tissueregeneration In our new @annualreviews.bsky.social piece, we explore how bioelectricity is generated, sensed & translated into responses that sculpt tissues, guide growth & enable tissue regeneration. www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
Bioelectricity in Morphogenesis
Bioelectricity is likely as old as life itself. From the moment the first proto-cell was enclosed in a lipid bilayer, a membrane potential arose. Thus, one can expect that bioelectrical activities inf...
annualreviews.org
LMB PhD studentship available in the Baum lab to use informatics to infer cell structure from genomic data in collaboration with the brilliant Tom Williams. If you write to me and I don’t reply - try again - the spam filter is hungry…
How do cells navigate up gradients of adhesive proteins? 🤔 Termed "Haptotaxis", this effect is ubiquitous in cell migration, but it's mechanism was poorly understood We show that passive friction directs cells & explains complex trajectories on gradients 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
SCHEPHERD--the bioelectric cell herding platform built for YOU. Single cells, monolayers, organoids--this herds them all + new tricks. Plz try it-- we will *give* you parts! Teaser here of a steering a single cell. GS Yubin Lin's lifeblood with J. Yodh on piano; Celeste R. and Paul K. Thread 1/N
bioRxivpreprint@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 11mo agoSCHEPHERD: A universal platform for high-throughput, high-resolution, and programmable control of cell behavior through bioelectric stimulation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.16.674226v1
Happy to share our new study @ijmonod.bsky.social and @mpi-scienceoflight.bsky.social with C. Duclut and J. Prost. on forces generated by active fluid transport in epithelia and their role in tissue dynamics. Congrats to Huiqiong Wu, G. Arkowitz and R. Chilupuri! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Regulation of epithelial tissue homeostasis by active trans-epithelial transport
Epithelia are intricate tissues whose function is intimately linked to mechanics. While mechanobiology has primarily focused on factors such as cell-generated contractility and mechanical properties o...
biorxiv.org
A ring of cells deforms into a triangular keyhole in just 15 minutes. Meet the hindgut, a model for boundary-driven morphogenesis! Out now in @pnas.org at doi.org/10.1073/pnas... with @zhaoshh.bsky.social, Alex Jacinto, Eric Wieschaus, Stas Shvartsman, @lepuslapis.bsky.social (1/8)
New preprint! 🚨 We uncover a slow adaptation to stretch that links star-bundling of keratin filaments with nuclear escape from its keratin cage. Led by @tomgolde.bsky.social 🙌 @IBECBarcelona www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Excited to share our new publication in Nature Physics about the mechanical memory of morphology in confined migrating cells by @kyohalie.bsky.social 🥳 Super fun collab with @davidbrueckner.bsky.social and @gcharras.bsky.social 👏🏻 Enjoy the reading www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The actin cortex acts as a mechanical memory of morphology in confined migrating cells - Nature Physics
Cells often navigate through confined spaces. Now it is shown that cells retain a mechanical memory of previous confinement events, which makes them more efficient at migrating through narrow microenv...
nature.com
Pathologists have used nuclear & tissue shapes to diagnose #cancer for decades, but what is the molecular basis for this? In our latest work, we develop a computational pipeline to figure this out in #colorectalcancer! Check out 🧵& preprint #mechanobiology #stemcells www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
(1/10) I am excited to finally share our work on avian left/right symmetry breaking with you. We reveal a tissue-scale active torque dipole generated at the Hensen’s node, thanks to crazy experiments by Julia @juliapfanzelter.bsky.social and some analysis by me. doi.org/10.1101/2025...
An active torque dipole across tissue layers drives avian left-right symmetry breaking
Unlike in mice, frogs, and fish, left-right (L/R) body axis formation in avian embryos does not arise from the chiral beat of cilia. Instead, a counter-clockwise tissue rotation around Hensen′ node, t...
doi.org
New paper from the lab led by @marija-matejcic.bsky.social ! Supracellular force patterns driving intestinal cell extrusion. 👇
Marija Matejčić (mateytch-itch)@marija-matejcic.bsky.social · last yr.On cell extrusion in the #intestine! After 80 years of observations, we finally took a deeper look thanks to 2D #organoids. We report: 3D #forces, #extrusion still only in the villus even without curvature, #lamellipodia generate 3D force.. and more. Have a look! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Have you ever thought about inflating tissues? Or maybe quickly deflating those inflated tissues? New #EpithelialMechanics pre-print: doi.org/10.1101/2025... 🧵 with pressure control, multiscale buckling, controlled wrinkling
🚨 Second preprint of the week! We uncover the multiscale dynamics of active viscoelastic buckling in epithelia. We harness these mechanical instabilities for synthetic morphogenesis. Led by @onenimesa.bsky.social 🙌. Theory by Marino Arroyo etal. @ibecbarcelona.eu www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
How to turn a layer of fibroblasts into a tulip 🌷? Check out our new pre-print on shape-programmable living surfaces. Led by @pauguillamat.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
1/14 “Epithelial” & “Mesenchymal” aren’t binary categories—they form a spectrum, or better yet, a multidimensional space. This becomes especially clear in collective cell migration, which often depends on a finely tuned degree of “mesenchymal-ness”. #cellbio #devbio #cellmigration
Be on the lookout for a new paper from the lab: "InterpolAI: Deep learning based optical flow interpolation and restoration of biomedical images for improved 3D tissue mapping" InterpolAI interpolates and restores defective images for enhanced 3D imaging (3D histology, MRI, confocal, ssTEM)
Happy to share our new publication in @naturematerials.bsky.social on mechanical cell competition! Great collaboration between our CAM team, Chavrier's and Doostmohammadi's. Special congrats @luanger.bsky.social, @andreasschoenit.bsky.social, Siavash Monfared! 🎉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Lab’s latest: (mouse) mums grow their guts during pregnancy and lactation: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
I am Absolutely delighted to share the preprint of our last collaborative efforts where we investigated the impact of sonostimulation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells. Thread -1- www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Sonoepigenetics: Spatiotemporal Calcium Dynamics and cAMP Signaling Driven by High Frequency Nanomechanostimulation Regulates Transient Epigenetic Modifications and Early Osteogenic Commitment in Mese...
Cells effectively balance and integrate numerous pathways to adapt to external signals in an attempt to regain homeostasis, although the complex nuclear mechanotransduction mechanism through which thi...
biorxiv.org