Liquid-crystal organization of liver tissue

Tissue function requires specific spatial organization of different cell types, yet should be flexible to allow for cell division and growth. Liquid-crystal order can serve this purpose. We computationally reconstructed 3D tissue geometry from microscopy images of mouse liver tissue and analyzed it using concepts from biaxial liquid crystal theory. We show that nematic apical and basal cell polarity axes of hepatocytes (the main cell type in the liver) follow long-range liquid-crystal order. These tissue-level patterns of hepatocyte cell polarity are co-aligned with a structural anisotropy of two transport networks, blood-transporting sinusoids and bile-transporting canaliculi that intertwine the tissue. Silencing communication from hepatocytes to sinusoids via Integrin-β1 knockdown disrupted both liquid-crystal order of hepatocytes and organization of the sinusoidal network, suggesting that bi-directional communication between hepatocytes and sinusoids orchestrates liver tissue architecture. Using a network generation algorithm, we computationally explore the resilience of anisotropic sinusoidal networks to local damage, thus addressing the link between form and function in a complex tissue with liquid-crystal order.

Morales-Navarette et al. eLife (2019) DOI: 10.7554/eLife.44860