The Control of Branching Morphogenesis

TL;DR

This paper reviews the regulatory factors and physical constraints involved in branching morphogenesis across various organs, exploring whether common principles underlie these diverse biological processes.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of known regulatory and physical factors and discusses models analyzing their roles in organ-specific branching morphogenesis.

Findings

Different organs share some regulatory mechanisms

Physical constraints influence branching patterns

Models help understand organ-specific morphogenesis

Abstract

Many organs of higher organisms are heavily branched structures and arise by an at first sight similar process of branching morphogenesis. Yet the regulatory components and local interactions that have been identified differ greatly in these organs. It is an open question whether the regulatory processes work according to a common principle and in how far physical and geometric constraints determine the branching process. Here we review the known regulatory factors and physical constraints in lung, kidney, pancreas, prostate, mammary and salivary gland branching morphogenesis, and describe the models that have been formulated to analyse their impacts.