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Space filling properties of the developing bronchial tree.

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posted on 2012-07-23, 02:06 authored by Pierre Blanc, Karen Coste, Pierre Pouchin, Jean-Marc Azaïs, Loïc Blanchon, Denis Gallot, Vincent Sapin

(A) Spheres (blue) are allowed to grow at the bud tips until they reach one another and/or the lobe surface. Given these conditions, spheres show only slight differences of diameters. The minimal sphere radius within a lobe is used as in vivo space filling criterion (Kiv). Arrows indicate intricate spheres at site undergoing bifurcation. The gaps between the spheres are predictive of the next branching sites: dorsal side-branches (doted circles) and posterior side-branch (star). (B) Kiv is given as percentage of the optimal value approximated by the best random value BRV (see Material and Methods). Although the best random spacing is geometrically overrated (see Material and Methods), all the Kiv values are higher than 80% of BRV at E11 (red), E12 (purple) and E13 (green). (C) From E11 to E13, Kiv (blue bars) are comprised between the 99th BRV percentile (light grey bars) and the BRV value (dark grey bars), except for one E13 lobe, demonstrating that new bud tips are not distributed at random and tend to fill homogeneously the available space in the mesenchyme. Scale bar 100 µm.

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