Active and passive contributions to cell shape change and rearrangements can be distinguished from observed cell geometry, revealing the self-organization mechanisms underlying internally-driven epithelial convergent extension.

Mindbomb1 acts independently of it well-known role in Notch signalling to control the endocytic internalization of the Wnt co-receptor Ryk and thereby modulate the activity of the Planar Cell Polarity pathway that governs morphogenetic movements during embryonic development.

During zebrafish embryogenesis, dact1 and dact2 are necessary for axis lengthening and craniofacial morphogenesis, and the protease capn8 is misexpressed in dact1/2 mutants.

Xenopus embryos use tissue surface tension to generate hoop-stress around the blastopore to help close it during gastrulation.

Blastopore closure in Xenopus is driven by two morphogenic mechanisms that have strongly context dependent effects on tissue movement and that generate tensile force across tissues: convergent extension, as expected, and, unexpectedly, convergent thickening.

Understanding the coordination of the forces generated in embryos by two processes, convergent extension and convergent thickening, is key to understanding how a hollow sphere of cells develops into an elongated embryo.

Geometric criteria can be used to assess whether cell intercalation is active or passive during the convergent extension of tissue.

Planar cell polarity proteins display dynamic spatial and temporal patterns of enrichment that tightly correlate with myosin-dependent cell behaviors during neural tube closure.

Directed mechanical stresses can trigger active T1 events that lead to tissue elongation perpendicular to the main direction of tissue stress.

Biological shapes and morphological transitions can emerge from combining directed interactions between cells with apical-basal and planar cell polarity.