Cells tile a flat plane by controlling geometries during morphogenesis of thalli.

Background: thalli, which are made of a single layer of polygonal cells, are a perfect model for studying the morphogenesis of multi-celled organisms because their cell proliferation process is an excellent example of the manner in which cells control their geometry to create a two-dimensional plane.

Methods: Cellular geometries of thalli at different stages of growth revealed by light microscope analysis.

Results: This study showed the cell division transect the middle of the selected paired-sides to divide the cell into two equal portions, thus resulting in cell sides ≥4 and keeping the average number of cell sides at approximately six even as the thallus continued to grow, such that more than 90% of the cells in thalli longer than 0.08 cm had 5-7 sides. However, cell division could not fully explain the distributions of intracellular angles. Results showed that cell-division-associated fast reorientation of cell sides and cell divisions together caused 60% of the inner angles of cells from longer thalli to range from 100-140°. These results indicate that cells prefer to form regular polygons.

Conclusions: This study suggests that appropriate cell-packing geometries maintained by cell division and reorientation of cell walls can keep the cells bordering each other closely, without gaps.