Biophysics of wound-induced waves in Zebrafish

Fu-Lai Wen^1*, Marco de Leon², Keng-Hui Lin¹, Chen-Hui Chen²

¹Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
²Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

* Presenter:Fu-Lai Wen, email:fulai@gate.sinica.edu.tw

Understanding of tissue repair and regeneration is fundamental to advance modern medicine for wound healing. Using Zebrafish as a model system, we investigate the physical mechanisms underlying propagation of cell waves induced by amputation of tail fins. We find via quantitative image analysis that wavelength, wave speed, and number of waves are regulated by a variety of factors such as severity of injury and concentration of hydrogen peroxide. A simple one-dimensional spring model is further developed to depict mechanical conditions for wave propagation. We show that this model is sufficient to capture many wave features observed in the experiments and, in particular, predict novel wave behaviors that are verified experimentally.

Keywords: Biophysics, Wave, Wound healing, Zebrafish