TY - JOUR T1 - From heterogenous morphogenetic fields to homogeneous regions as a step towards understanding complex tissue dynamics JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/696252 SP - 696252 AU - Satoshi Yamashita AU - Boris Guirao AU - François Graner Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/05/11/696252.abstract N2 - Within developing tissues, cell proliferation, cell motility, and other cell behaviors vary spatially, and this variability gives a complexity to the morphogenesis. Recently, novel formalisms have been developed to quantify tissue deformation and underlying cellular processes. A major challenge for the study of morphogenesis now is to objectively define tissue sub-regions exhibiting different dynamics. Here we propose a method to automatically divide a tissue into regions where the local deformation rate is homogeneous. This was achieved by several approaches including image segmentation, clustering, and cellular Potts model simulation. We illustrate the use of the pipeline using a large dataset obtained during the metamorphosis of the Drosophila pupal notum. We also adapt it to determine regions where the time evolution of the local deformation rate is homogeneous. Finally, we generalize its use to find homogeneous regions for the cellular processes such as cell division, cell rearrangement, or cell size and shape changes. We also illustrate it on wing blade morphogenesis. This pipeline will contribute substantially to the analysis of complex tissue shaping and the biochemical and bio-mechanical regulations driving tissue morphogenesis.Summary statement Tissue morphogenesis is driven by multiple mechanisms. This study proposes a method-ology to identify regions in the developing tissue, where each of the regions has distinctive cellular dynamics and deformation.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -