Related papers: Mechanical cell-matrix feedback explains pairwise …
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…
Angiogenesis, the development of new vasculature, is a critical process in the growth of new tumors. Driven by a goal to understand this aspect of cancer proliferation, I develop a discrete computationally optimized mathematical model of…
Cell shape is determined by a balance of intrinsic properties of the cell as well as its mechanochemical environment. Inhomogeneous shape changes underly many morphogenetic events and involve spatial gradients in active cellular forces…
A continuum model of epithelial tissue mechanics was formulated using cellular-level mechanical ingredients and cell morphogenetic processes, including cellular shape changes and cellular rearrangements. This model can include finite…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
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…
In vivo, eukaryotic cells are embedded in a matrix environment, where they grow and develop. Generally, this extracellular matrix (ECM) is an anisotropic fibrous structure, through which macromolecules and biochemical signaling molecules at…
An adequate control of cell response in tissue engineering applications is of utmost importance to obtain products suitable to clinical practice. This paper is the first part of a series of two connected publications in which we study via…
Morphogenetic dynamics of tissue sheets require coordinated cell shape changes regulated by global patterning of mechanical forces. Inspired by such biological phenomena, we propose a minimal mechanochemical model based on the notion that…
Recent experiments suggest that the interplay between cells and the mechanics of their substrate gives rise to a diversity of morphological and migrational behaviors. Here, we develop a Cellular Potts Model of polarizing cells on a…
When modeling of tumor-driven angiogenesis, a major source of analytical and computational complexity is the strong coupling between the kinetic parameters of the relevant stochastic branching-and-growth of the capillary network, and the…
We study a system of particles in a two-dimensional geometry that move according to a reinforced random walk with transition probabilities dependent on the solutions of reaction-diffusion equations for the underlying fields. A birth process…
After injury, if regeneration can be observed in hydra, planaria and some vertebrates, regeneration is rare in mammals and particularly in humans. In this paper, we investigate the mechanisms by which biological tissues recover after…
Cells crawling through tissues migrate inside a complex fibrous environment called the extracellular matrix (ECM), which provides signals regulating motility. Here we investigate one such well-known pathway, involving mutually antagonistic…
Many fundamental biological processes are dependent on cellular migration. Although the mechanical mechanisms of single-cell migration are relatively well understood, those underlying migration of multiple cells adhered to each other in a…
Tumor angiogenesis concerns the development of new blood vessels supplying the necessary nutrients for the further development of existing tumor cells. The entire process is complex, involving the production and consumption of chemicals,…
Collective cell migration plays a central role in tissue development, morphogenesis, wound repair and cancer progression. With the growing realization that physical forces mediate cell motility in development and physiology, a key…
The formation of gaps in the endothelium is a crucial process underlying both cancer and immune cell extravasation, contributing to the functioning of the immune system during infection, the unfavorable development of chronic inflammation…
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…
A number of biological processes, such as embryo development, cancer metastasis or wound healing, rely on cells moving in concert. The mechanisms leading to the emergence of coordinated motion remain however largely unexplored. Although…