Related papers: Correlating Cell Behavior with Tissue Topology in …
As an injury heals, an embryo develops, or a carcinoma spreads, epithelial cells systematically change their shape. In each of these processes cell shape is studied extensively, whereas variation of shape from cell-to-cell is dismissed most…
Collective cell migration is a key driver of embryonic development, wound healing, and some types of cancer invasion. Here we provide a physical perspective of the mechanisms underlying collective cell migration. We begin with a catalogue…
The homeostasis of epithelial tissue relies on a balance between the self-renewal of stem cell populations, cellular differentiation, and loss. Although this balance needs to be tightly regulated to avoid pathologies, such as tumor growth,…
Contact inhibition refers to a reduction in the rate of cell migration and/or cell proliferation in regions of high cell density. Under normal conditions contact inhibition is associated with the proper functioning tissues, whereas abnormal…
Development combines three basic processes asymmetric --- cell division, signaling and gene regulation --- in a multitude of ways to create an overwhelming diversity of multicellular life-forms. Here, we attempt to chart this diversity…
This paper presents an interesting experimental example of voter-model statistics in biology. In recent work on mouse tail-skin, where proliferating cells are confined to a two-dimensional layer, we showed that cells proliferate and…
Across metazoans, early embryos exhibit a strikingly conserved slowing down of their cell duplication speed, despite widely varying developmental paces and underlying molecular mechanisms. Here we show that this common behavior arises…
A key process in the life of any multicellular organism is its development from a single egg into a full grown adult. The first step in this process often consists of forming a tissue layer out of randomly placed cells on the surface of the…
We introduce a model for describing the dynamics of large numbers of interacting cells. The fundamental dynamical variables in the model are sub-cellular elements, which interact with each other through phenomenological intra- and…
The importance of collective cellular migration during embryogenesis and tissue repair asks for a sound understanding of underlying principles and mechanisms. Here, we address recent in vitro experiments on cell monolayers which show that…
Collective cell migration lies at the intersection of developmental biology and non-equilibrium physics, where active processes give rise to emergent patterns that are biologically relevant. Here, we investigate dilatational modes--cycles…
The maintenance of the proliferative cell niche is critical to epithelial tissue morphology and function. In this paper we investigate how current modelling methods can result in the erroneous loss of proliferative cells from the…
Convergence extension, the simultaneous elongation of tissue along one axis while narrowing along a perpendicular axis, occurs during embryonic development. A fundamental process that contributes to shaping the organism, it happens in many…
Early estimates of the transmission potential of emerging and re-emerging infections are increasingly used to inform public health authorities on the level of risk posed by outbreaks. Existing methods to estimate the reproduction number…
We propose a three dimensional mechanical model of embryonic tissue dynamics. Mechanically coupled adherent cells are represented as particles interconnected with elastic beams which can exert non-central forces and torques. Tissue…
Populations of mammalian stem cells commonly exhibit considerable cell-cell variability. However, the functional role of this diversity is unclear. Here, we analyze expression fluctuations of the stem cell surface marker Sca1 in mouse…
During the development of an organism, cells must coordinate and organize to generate the correct shape, structure, and spatial patterns of tissues and organs, a process known as morphogenesis. The morphogenesis of embryonic tissues is…
Cells of the human body have nearly identical genome but exhibit very different phenotypes that allow them to carry out specific functions and react to changes in their surrounding environment. This division of labour is achieved by…
During embryonic development tissue morphogenesis and signaling are tightly coupled. It is therefore important to simulate both tissue morphogenesis and signaling simultaneously in in silico models of developmental processes. The resolution…
The maintenance of the pluripotent state in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) is critical for further application in regenerative medicine, drug testing and studies of fundamental biology. Currently, the selection of the best quality cells…