Spontaneous elongation of 3D gastruloids from local cell polarity alignment

Richard D. J. G. Ho; Endre J. L. Mossige; Sergei Ponomartcev; Natalia Smirnova; Xian Hu; Keqing Sunny Dai; Stefan Krauss; Dag Kristian Dysthe; Luiza Angheluta

arXiv · 2509.08929

Spontaneous elongation of 3D gastruloids from local cell polarity alignment

Richard D. J. G. Ho·Endre J. L. Mossige·Sergei Ponomartcev·Natalia Smirnova·Xian Hu·Keqing Sunny Dai·Stefan Krauss·Dag Kristian Dysthe·Luiza Angheluta

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Abstract

Gastruloids are 3D stem cell aggregate models for early embryogenesis that provide a unique platform to study how collective cell dynamics drive tissue symmetry breaking and axial elongation. Using 3D light sheet imaging, we show that a pulse of Chiron, a Wnt activator, induces coherent alignment of cell polarity during elongation. While nuclear elongation occurs with or without treatment, only Chiron-treated gastruloids exhibit quasi-long-range alignment of nuclear axes, linking cell polarity coherence to tissue-scale remodeling. A minimal physical model of polarized cells, incorporating alignment-dependent torques and polarity-mediated adhesion, reproduces symmetry breaking and elongation, demonstrating that local cell polarity alignment alone can drive tissue-scale convergence-extension flows.

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Richard D. J. G. Ho, Endre J. L. Mossige, Sergei Ponomartcev, Natalia Smirnova, Xian Hu, Keqing Sunny Dai, Stefan Krauss, Dag Kristian Dysthe, Luiza Angheluta. 2025-09-10. Spontaneous elongation of 3D gastruloids from local cell polarity alignment. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08929

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