{"doi":"10.1101/2022.12.26.521704","title":"Epithelia delimits glial apical polarity against mechanical shear to maintain glia-neuron - architecture","abstract":"ABSTRACT For an organ to maintain proper architecture and function, its different component cell-types must coordinate their cell-shapes with each other through life. While cell-intrinsic developmental mechanisms driving homotypic cell-cell coordination are known, how heterotypic cells collectively regulate cell-shape is less-clear. We report that, in a sense-organ, epithelial cells delimit and maintain polarity domains of contacting glia, and thereby, associated neuron shapes throughout life. Briefly, Hsp co-chaperone UNC-23/BAG2 keeps epithelial apical domains from deforming with animal movement. Epithelial apical domains stretch aberrantly and progressively in adult unc-23 mutant animals, which in an FGFR-dependent manner, dislocates glial apical cytoskeleton proteins SMA-1/β H -Spectrin and actin. This alters glial apical polarity and cell shape, and concomitantly, associated neuron-ending shape. Notably, UNC-23 acts temporally at a developmental critical period to maintain glia-neuron shape in adults, and spatially within a defined anatomical zone. Lastly, intervention in either epithelia, glia or neuron ameliorate or phenocopy unc-23 neural defects. Epi/endothelia resist mechanical stress and contact glia-neuron units across central/peripheral nervous systems and species, and all components of the identified molecular pathway are conserved and disease-relevant. Thus, we posit that analogous epithelia-glia mechanobiological coupling may broadly regulate glia-neuron shapes through animal life.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2022,"id":299671,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9483,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":990010,"name":"James S. Bent","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":490864,"name":"Aakanksha Singhvi","orcid":"0000-0001-5782-8536","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":989592,"name":"Cecilia G. Martin","orcid":"0000-0002-4790-1928","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":137,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:31:44.904250Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}