{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,30]],"date-time":"2026-09-30T09:43:06Z","timestamp":1790761386921,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":33,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,10]],"date-time":"2023-05-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1683676800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000002","name":"National Institutes of Health","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["HL136476 HL007734"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["HL136476 HL007734"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000002","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Netw. Physiol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Mammalian epithelia form a continuous sheet of cells that line the surface of visceral organs. To analyze the epithelial organization of the heart, lung, liver and bowel, epithelial cells were labeled <jats:italic>in situ<\/jats:italic>, isolated as a single layer and imaged as large epithelial digitally combine montages. The stitched epithelial images were analyzed for geometric and network organization. Geometric analysis demonstrated a similar polygon distribution in all organs with the greatest variability in the heart epithelia. Notably, the normal liver and inflated lung demonstrated the largest average cell surface area (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic> &amp;lt; 0.01). In lung epithelia, characteristic wavy or interdigitated cell boundaries were observed. The prevalence of interdigitations increased with lung inflation. To complement the geometric analyses, the epithelia were converted into a network of cell-to-cell contacts. Using the open-source software EpiGraph, subgraph (graphlet) frequencies were used to characterize epithelial organization and compare to mathematical (Epi-Hexagon), random (Epi-Random) and natural (Epi-Voronoi5) patterns. As expected, the patterns of the lung epithelia were independent of lung volume. In contrast, liver epithelia demonstrated a pattern distinct from lung, heart and bowel epithelia (<jats:italic>p<\/jats:italic> &amp;lt; 0.05). We conclude that geometric and network analyses can be useful tools in characterizing fundamental differences in mammalian tissue topology and epithelial organization.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fnetp.2023.1144186","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,10]],"date-time":"2023-05-10T19:19:47Z","timestamp":1683746387000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Geometric and network organization of visceral organ epithelium"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"3","author":[{"given":"Betty S.","family":"Liu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Joseph","family":"Sutlive","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Willi L.","family":"Wagner","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hassan A.","family":"Khalil","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Zi","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Maximilian","family":"Ackermann","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Steven J.","family":"Mentzer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"717","DOI":"10.1016\/j.devcel.2007.09.002","article-title":"Myosin II regulates complex cellular arrangement and epithelial architecture in drosophila","volume":"13","author":"Escudero","year":"2007","journal-title":"Dev. 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