{"id":237385,"date":"2026-05-19T06:13:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/3d-epithelial-cell-topology-tunes-signaling-range-to-promote-precise-patterning"},"modified":"2026-05-19T06:13:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:13:44","slug":"3d-epithelial-cell-topology-tunes-signaling-range-to-promote-precise-patterning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/3d-epithelial-cell-topology-tunes-signaling-range-to-promote-precise-patterning","title":{"rendered":"3D epithelial cell topology tunes signaling range to promote precise patterning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/3d-epithelial-cell-topology-tunes-signaling-range-to-promote-precise-patterning2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cell behaviors in multicellular organisms are coordinated via both diffusible molecules and by signals based on direct cell\u2013cell contacts. The mode of cell communication used influences the signaling range. In many developing epithelia, contact-based Notch-Delta lateral inhibition signaling is used to pattern cell fates. While previous work revealed that cells can use protrusions to extend the range of Notch-Delta signaling to alter these patterns, this is not a general feature of epithelia. In addition, it is not known how the complex three-dimensional (3D) shapes of epithelial cells influence cell communication. In exploring this question, we show that epithelial cells at the <i>Drosophila<\/i> wing margin, which lack basal protrusions, contact different neighbors at different heights along their apico-basal axis, effectively increasing the number of neighbors each cell touches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cell behaviors in multicellular organisms are coordinated via both diffusible molecules and by signals based on direct cell\u2013cell contacts. The mode of cell communication used influences the signaling range. In many developing epithelia, contact-based Notch-Delta lateral inhibition signaling is used to pattern cell fates. While previous work revealed that cells can use protrusions to extend [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}