Unit Leader

Yoshihiro Morishita (Ph.D.)

Developmental phenomena comprise a multiscalar system extending across a range of spatial scales, from molecular to cellular to histological. Such phenomena are also multiphysical, in that they involve the transmission and reception of positional information through diffusion and reactions of chemicals, and the generation of forces within tissues and concomitant geometrical deformation through the proliferation and migration of cells. The Laboratory for Developmental Morphogeometry takes theoretical and experimental approaches to the study of phenomena comprising multiple scales and properties, and the quantitative measurement of dynamic and coordinated interactions between such phenomena.

Research Topics

• Quantitative imaging and geometrical analysis of organ morphogenetic process
• Space-time recognition of cells in growing tissues
• Mechanical modeling of organ morphogenesis
• Systems biological approach to spatial patterning

Selected Publications

• Suzuki, T. & Morishita, Y.
  "A quantitative approach to understanding vertebrate limb morphogenesis at the macroscopic tissue level"
  Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 45, 108-114 (2017) doi:10.1016/j.gde.2017.04.005
• Lee, S. & Morishita, Y.
  "Possible roles of mechanical cell elimination intrinsic to growing tissues from the perspective of tissue growth efficiency and homeostasis"
  PLoS Comput. Biol. 13, e1005651 (2017) doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005651
• Morishita, Y., Hironaka, K., Lee, S. W., Jin, T. & Ohtsuka, D.
  "Reconstructing 3D deformation dynamics for curved epithelial sheet morphogenesis from positional data of sparsely-labeled cells"
  Nat. Commun. 8, 15 (2017) doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00023-7
• Hironaka, K. & Morishita, Y.
  "Adaptive significance of critical weight for metamorphosis in holometabolous insects"
  J. Theor. Biol. 417, 68-83 (2017) doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2017.01.014
• Morishita, Y., Kuroiwa, A. & Suzuki, T.
  "Quantitative analysis of tissue deformation dynamics reveals three characteristic growth modes and globally aligned anisotropic tissue deformation during chick limb development"
  Development 142, 1672-1683 (2015) doi:10.1242/dev.109728
• Morishita, Y. & Suzuki, T.
  "Bayesian inference of whole-organ deformation dynamics from limited space-time point data"
  J. Theor. Biol. 357, 74-85 (2014) doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2014.04.027
• Hironaka, K. & Morishita, Y.
  "Encoding and decoding of positional information in morphogen-dependent patterning"
  Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 22, 553-561 (2012) doi:10.1016/j.gde.2012.10.002
• Morishita, Y. & Iwasa, Y.
  "Coding Design of Positional Information for Robust Morphogenesis"
  Biophys. J. 101, 2324-2335 (2011) doi:10.1016/j.bpj.2011.09.048
• Morishita, Y. & Iwasa, Y.
  "Accuracy of positional information provided by multiple morphogen gradients with correlated noise "
  Phys. Rev. E 79, 061905 (2009) doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.79.061905
• Morishita, Y. & Iwasa, Y.
  "Optimal placement of multiple morphogen sources "
  Phys. Rev. E 77, 041909 (2008) doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.77.041909