Our research Interests: We are interested in how polarity genes regulate tissue 
morphogenesis and maintenance via cell adhesion. Based on our prior work, we recently proposed the concept of “orientational cell adhesions (OCAs)” to couple cell orientations with cell adhesions (Fig.1). OCAs refer to cell–cell, and cell–matrix–cell adhesions that define distinct orientational intercellular relationships, i.e., the relative orientations of the intrinsic polarities of coalesced cells. OCAs can be classified according to the distinct orientational intercellular relationships that they define, such as opposing apical, parallel, antiparallel, tandem, or opposing 
basal OCAs. OCAs complement conventional adhesions by emphasizing different aspects of cell adhesions.

Stemming from the OCA concept, we further proposed “the Lego hypothesis of tissue morphogenesis”, which states that the topographical properties of cell surface adhesion molecules can be dynamically altered and polarized by regulating the spatiotemporal expression and localization of OCA molecules cellautonomously and non-cell-autonomously, thus modulating cells into unique Lego pieces for selfassembling into distinct cytoarchitectures (Fig. 2). The Lego hypothesis demystifies tissue morphogenesis and simplifies it as a selfassembling process via OCAs. 

While the OCA concept and the Lego hypothesis are yet to be broadly recognized by the field. They offer a new perspective for us to study how cell adhesions regulate tissue morphogenesis and maintenance.