Informal Seminar - Sheng-hong Chen

"Patterning Cell Death: Ferroptotic Waves, Self-Organization, and Tissue-Scale Morphogenesis"

Large-scale cell death is essential for tissue sculpting during development, yet how death events are coordinated across millimeter-scale tissues remains poorly understood. I will discuss our recent work revealing that ferroptosis, an iron- and lipid-peroxidation-dependent form of cell death, can propagate through cell populations as self-regenerating trigger waves of reactive oxygen species. These waves arise when ferroptotic stress converts cellular redox networks into bistable media, enabling local death events to spread over long distances through coupled ROS amplification and diffusion. In the developing avian limb, ferroptosis accompanies spatially restricted tissue remodeling, suggesting that ferroptotic waves can act as a developmental sculpting mechanism.

Host: Paul Sternberg