09/06/02, 13:30 - 14:30 at Room 3631 (6th floor of building 3 of the Faculty of Sciences)

In early lung development, endodermal epithelial tubes (lung buds)intrude into mesodermal　mesenchyme covered with pleural cells (lung border), and form complex tree-like networks, via repeated use of morphogenetic processes: “elongation”, “terminal bifurcation” and “lateral budding”. When a bud is elongating, a peak expression of Fgf10 is formed in the mesenchyme near the tip; whilst when terminal bifurcation and lateral budding occur, two separate peaks are formed instead. To explain the spatial pattern of Fgf10 expression, we develop a mathematical model for the regulation of Fgf10 expression with geometric conditions including shapes of lung buds and lung border. Different localization patterns of Fgf10 expression can be explained by geometric conditions. Fgf10 expression has a single peak when the distance between the tip of lung bud and the lung border is long. When the distance is short, Fgf10 expression has two peaks, whose location depends on the curvature of the lung border.

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