Mechanical waves induced by wounding in zebrafish

Fu-Lai Wen^1,2*, Marco de Leon³, Keng-Hui Lin², Chen-Hui Chen³

¹International Center for Wound Repair and Regeneration, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City, Taiwan
²Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei City, Taiwan
³Insititute of Cellular and Organismic Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei City, Taiwan

* Presenter:Fu-Lai Wen, email:fulai@gs.ncku.edu.tw

Understanding of tissue repair and regeneration is fundamental to advance medical treatment for wound healing. Here we investigate the cellular mechanisms underlying healing of amputated tailfins in zebrafish. By performing large-scale live imaging on the tailfin epidermis, we find that thousands of cells migrate collectively exhibiting a travelling wave pattern to heal wounds. In particular, we show via quantitative image analysis that the wavelength, wave speed, and number of waves are regulated by the levels of amputation and concentrations of hydrogen peroxide accumulated at the wound sites. A simple one-dimensional active spring (ODAS) model was developed to further decipher the mechanical conditions for wave propagation. We demonstrate that the ODAS model is sufficient to capture many wave features observed in the experiments and, in particular, predict novel wave behaviors that were verified experimentally.

Keywords: Mechanical waves, Wound healing, Zebrafish