Scientists discover a new form called scutoid after studying human cells | science

Scientists have discovered a new form called scutoid by studying how nature shapes tissue to form skin, cavity linings and building blocks of organs.

The shape has five sides at one end and six at the other and a triangular surface on one of its longest edges. Scientists have called it a type of twisted prism shape that allows the tissue to form around the organs.

The epithelial tissue, one of the four types of tissue that make up the human body, is composed of epithelial cells packed together in a particular formation that has received a clever name: scutoid.

"During the modeling process, the results we saw were strange," said Javier Buceta, lead author of the study, in an e-mail to HT. "Our model predicts that when the Curvature of tissue increases, columns and shapes of bottles are not the only forms that cells can develop. To our surprise, the extra form did not even have a name in math! One does not normally have the opportunity to name a new form. "

The name is a reference to its similarity to the scutellum, the lowest segment of the thorax of an insect, the middle section.The resemblance is striking if one looks at the posterior d & # 39; A scarab Protaetia speciosa of the subfamily Cetoniinae

Epithelial cells are the key cells of embryonic development and are the building blocks of tissues and organs.Epithelial tissue not only forms complex 3D forms and the outer layer of the skin, but also the inner lining of the blood vessels

Up to now, the widely accepted belief is that epithelial cells adopt cylindrical or bottle-shaped shapes. Epithelial cells focused mainly on one side, the surface of these cells, partly because of technical limitations, and extrapolated this surface as a proxy for their tridi structure. "explained Buceta. "We did a computational model that predicted these forms and then confirmed this result in a number of different animal tissues."

The authors argue that the particular shape makes the packaging stable and "energetically efficient."

This is the result of a collaboration between the United States and the EU that has uncovered the existence of the new form through modeling calculations, confirmed by experiments on its presence in different types of tissues and animals.

It is important for the understanding of epithelial organs and will contribute to the field of tissue engineering specifically the development of artificial organs.

The article entitled "Scutoids is a geometric solution to the three-dimensional packaging of epithelia", was published in Nature Communications

First published: July 31, 2018 06:54 IST