Bacteria Provides Clues to Engineering of Organs

A new research sheds light on the mechanics of cell, tissue and organ formation. It reveals basic mechanism about how a group of bacterial cells can form large three dimensional structures.

A team of biologists along with the mechanical engineer from The University of Texas at Dallas conducted a cell research that provides information that can be used to engineer organs.

They conducted a research on bacteria known as Bacillus subtilis.

"If you want to create an organism, the geometry of how a group of cells self-organizes is crucial," said Dr. Hongbing Lu, professor of mechanical engineering and holder of the Louis Beecherl Jr. Chair at UT Dallas and an author of the study. "We found that cell death leads to wrinkles and the stiffer the cell the fewer wrinkles."

When individual cells combine with other cells it form organs. The aggregate of the cells and their environment form a thin layer of what is known as a biofilm. It is these biofilms that form the 3-D winkled pattern.

This study was led by Senior author Dr. Gürol Süel, now at the University of California, San Diego, and his colleagues.

For this study they analyzed the dead cells under the wrinkle pattern. Along with Lu who is an expert in nanomechanics, they tried o discover what came first the cells death or the wrinkle.

They noticed that groups of cells dying together within the biofilm resulted in the formation of wrinkles. They also found that the stiffness of the biofilm affected the formation of wrinkles.

This is crucial as it lays the foundation for the first theory about building a structure in tissues and organs, taking both the biological and mechanical forces into consideration.

"There are ways to control whether a biofilm is soft or stiff, and then you control the wrinkling and the ultimate structure the cells become," Lu said.

Researchers then controlled the location where cells died and were able to create artificial wrinkle patterns, verifying their findings.

"Bascillus Subtilis has many aspects that are similar to other cells," Lu said. "If we understand how this process works in bacteria, it can open up the door to higher levels of life."

According to Lu, the next step would be to create more organized 3D structures using higher forms of life.

The research, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.