ON THE MECHANISM OF TISSUE RECONSTRUCTION BY DISSOCIATED CELLS, III. FREE ENERGY RELATIONS AND THE REORGANIZATION OF FUSED, HETERONOMIC TISSUE FRAGMENTS

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Abstract
It is known that the intermixed cells of differing embryonic tissues autonomously segregate from one another to reconstruct their respective tissues in defined relative positions within compound aggregates. The findings reported in the previous papers of this series indicated that this entire process is directly controlled by quantitative differences in the strengths of adhesion achieved by the various possible combinations of like and unlike cells relative to one another. The requisite adhesive differences are here formulated mathematically as relations which predict that fused, intact fragments of differing tissues will, by a spreading process, assume an organization identical with that achieved through autonomous segregation by intermixed cells of the same tissues. This prediction is substantiated. When viewed in the light of previous work by others, the results demonstrate that the mutual anatomical relationships of tissues in the organism must be determined in appreciable measure by the quantitative adhesive differences deduced from these observations, operating to minimize the surface free energy of the system.
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