Global morphogenetic flow is accurately predicted by the spatial distribution of myosin motors. Author Sebastian Streichan, Matthew Lefebvre, Nicholas Noll, Eric Wieschaus, Boris Shraiman Publication Year 2018 Type Journal Article Abstract During embryogenesis tissue layers undergo morphogenetic flow rearranging and folding into specific shapes. While developmental biology has identified key genes and local cellular processes, global coordination of tissue remodeling at the organ scale remains unclear. Here, we combine light-sheet microscopy of the embryo with quantitative analysis and physical modeling to relate cellular flow with the patterns of force generation during the gastrulation process. We find that the complex spatio-temporal flow pattern can be predicted from the measured meso-scale myosin density and anisotropy using a simple, effective viscous model of the tissue, achieving close to 90% accuracy with one time dependent and two constant parameters. Our analysis uncovers the importance of a) spatial modulation of myosin distribution on the scale of the embryo and b) the non-locality of its effect due to mechanical interaction of cells, demonstrating the need for the global perspective in the study of morphogenetic flow. Keywords Animals, Drosophila, Microscopy, Gastrulation, Myosins, Spatio-Temporal Analysis Journal Elife Volume 7 Date Published 2018 Feb 09 ISSN Number 2050-084X DOI 10.7554/eLife.27454 Alternate Journal Elife PMCID PMC5843464 PMID 29424685 PubMedPubMed CentralGoogle ScholarBibTeXEndNote X3 XML