Related papers: Mechanical Stress Inference for Two Dimensional Ce…
We derive a continuum mechanical model to capture the morphological changes occurring at the pretumoral stage of epithelial tissues. The proposed model aims to investigate the competition between the bulk elasticity of the epithelium and…
We use laser hole-drilling to assess the mechanics of an embryonic epithelium during development - in vivo and with subcellular resolution. We ablate a subcellular cylindrical hole clean through the epithelium, and track the subsequent…
This paper proposes a proof of concept application of a biphasic constitutive model to identify the mechanical properties of in vivo human skin under extension. Although poromechanics theory has been extensively used to model other soft…
Contraction assay based on surface measurement have been widely used to evaluate cell contractility in 3D models. This method is straightforward and requires no specific equipment, but it does not provide quantitative data about contraction…
Living tissue is able to withstand large stresses in everyday life, yet it also actively adapts to dynamic loads. This remarkable mechanical behaviour emerges from the interplay between living cells and their non-living extracellular…
Tissue engineering aims to grow artificial tissues \emph{in vitro} to replace those in the body that have been damaged through age, trauma or disease. A recent approach to engineer artificial cartilage involves seeding cells within a…
Animal morphogenesis involves complex tissue deformation processes, which require tight control over tissue rheology. Yet, it remains insufficiently understood how tissue rheology results from the interplay between cellular packing and…
During growth, tissue expands and deforms. Given its elastic properties, stresses emerge in an expanding and deforming tissue. Cell rearrangements can dissipate these stresses and numerous experiments confirm the viscoelastic properties of…
Cells self-organize into functional, ordered structures during tissue morphogenesis, a process that is evocative of colloidal self-assembly into engineered soft materials. Understanding how inter-cellular mechanical interactions may drive…
We generated a computational approach to analyze the biomechanics of epithelial cell aggregates, either island or stripes or entire monolayers, that combines both vertex and contact-inhibition-of-locomotion models to include both cell-cell…
Understanding the rules underlying organismal development is a major unsolved problem in biology. Each cell in a developing organism responds to signals in its local environment by dividing, excreting, consuming, or reorganizing, yet how…
We propose a minimal mathematical model to explain long-range coordination of dynamics of multiple cells in epithelial spreading, which may be induced, under different conditions, by a chemical signal, or mechanical stress, or both. The…
Endocytosis is an essential process by which cells internalize a piece of plasma membrane and material from the outside. In cells with turgor, pressure opposes membrane defor- mations, and increases the amount of force that has to be…
Biological cells can actively tune their intracellular architecture according to their overall shape. Here we explore the rheological implication of such coupling in a minimal model of a dense cellular material where each cell exerts an…
How morphogenesis depends on cell properties is an active direction of research. Here, we focus on mechanical models of growing plant tissues, where microscopic (sub)cellular structure is taken into account. In order to establish links…
Traction force microscopy is a method widely used in biophysics and cell biology to determine forces that biological cells apply to their environment. In the experiment, the cells adhere to a soft elastic substrate, which is then deformed…
We investigate a continuum mechanical model for an adherent cell on two dimensional adhesive micropatterned substrates. The cell is modeled as an isotropic and homogeneous elastic material subject to uniform internal contractile stresses.…
Tuning of active prestress e.g. through activity of molecular motors constitutes a powerful cellular tool to adjust cellular stiffness through nonlinear material properties. Understanding this tool is an important prerequisite for our…
In proliferating epithelia of mammalian skin, cells of irregular polygonal-like shapes pack into complex nearly flat two-dimensional structures that are pliable to deformations. In this work, we employ various sensitive correlation…
This study investigates the elastic response of a two-dimensional semi-infinite medium subjected to a moving surface load with a prescribed displacement profile. As a fundamental step, we derive analytical Green's functions for the…