From signalling dynamics to embryo–maternal communication

Date

Oct 29, 2026

Time

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Speaker

Ina Sonnen

Affiliation

Hubrecht Institute, Netherlands

Series

MPI-CBG Thursday Seminar

Language

en

Main Topic

Biologie

Host

Rita Mateus

Description

How do cells and tissues encode and exchange information to coordinate multicellular behaviour? Our work on somitogenesis showed that the temporal organization of signalling matters for development: the relative timing between oscillating pathways is functionally important for embryonic segmentation. We then asked whether temporal signalling could also regulate cell fate in a homeostatic tissue. In the intestinal epithelium, we found that changing the frequency of signalling oscillations alters cell-type composition, establishing frequency encoding as a mechanism of tissue homeostasis. More recently, we turned to communication between embryonic and maternal tissues during human implantation. While initially aiming to study signalling between these tissues, we made an unexpected observation: embryonic and endometrial cells form heterokaryons. Following this finding mechanistically led us to identify Syncytin-2/MFSD2A as a mediator of this interaction. Together, these studies explore how information is encoded within tissues and exchanged between them to coordinate multicellular behaviour.

Last modified: Sep 24, 2026, 7:37:45 AM