BIO
In the literature: open
How a growing organ knows when to stop
In plain words
Organs such as a fly's wing grow to the right size and then stop, even when their cells divide at different rates. Whether the stop signal comes from chemical gradients, mechanical stress, or both is unknown.
Precise statement
For the Drosophila wing imaginal disc, identify the mechanism that ends growth at a final size reproducible to a few percent: Dpp morphogen readout, mechanical feedback through compression-dependent proliferation, Hippo pathway signaling, or a combination. A model must predict final size and the timing of growth arrest under perturbations (clonal overgrowth, Dpp mutants, imposed compression).
What would settle it
Quantitative live imaging of growth, stress and signaling in perturbed discs matched by a model with independently measured parameters.