morphogenesis in Drosophila. We focused on dorsal closure, a powerful model system for
development and wound healing. We found that the bulk of progress toward closure is
driven by contractility in supracellular “purse strings” and in the amnioserosa, whereas
adhesion-mediated zipping coordinates the forces produced by the purse strings and is
essential only for the end stages. We applied quantitative modeling to show that these …