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Control of Lumen Morphology by Lateral and Basal Cell Surfaces

Chandraniva Guha Ray1,2,3,*, Markus Mukenhirn4,*,†, Alf Honigmann4,5,‡, and Pierre A. Haas1,2,3,§

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Present address: Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, Downing Site, Cambridge CB2 3EL, United Kingdom.
  • ‡Contact author: alf.honigmann@tu-dresden.de
  • §Contact author: haas@pks.mpg.de
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PRX Life 4, 013037 – Published 30 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/2y72-hnp2

Abstract

Across development, the formation of fluid-filled lumina enclosed by epithelial tissues is inextricably linked to the establishment of apicobasal cell polarity. Here, we reveal how the mechanical differences between cell surfaces resulting from this polarity enter the interplay of lumen pressure, mechanics of the cell cortex, and cell-cell adhesion that determines lumen morphology: Madin–Darby canine kidney cysts under tight junction perturbations display a shape instability of apical surfaces that is associated with changes of cyst pressure and apical belt tension [Mukenhirn et al., Dev. Cell 59, 2886 (2024)]. Here, we discover that the cysts also respond to these perturbations by significant modulations of lateral and basal surface tensions. We develop a mean-field three-dimensional vertex model of these cysts that reproduces the experimental shape space and instability quantitatively. This model explains the observed increase of lateral contractility to be a cellular response that counters the instability. Our work thus shows how regulation of the mechanics of all cell surfaces conspires to control lumen morphology.

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PRX Life 4, 013037– Published 30 March, 2026
  • Received 4 September 2025
  • Accepted 9 March 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by Max Planck Society.

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