Related papers: Propagating stress waves during epithelial expansi…
T1 transitions, which are localised cell rearrangements, play an important role in the fluidization of epithelial monolayers. Using a multi-phase field model and an active elastic solid model, we show that although each cell undergoes T1…
Multiphase field models have emerged as an important computational tool for understanding biological tissue while resolving single-cell properties. While they have successfully reproduced many experimentally observed behaviors of living…
Synchronization of activity among myocytes constituting vital organs, e.g., the heart, is crucial for physiological functions. Self-organized coordination in such heterogeneous ensemble of excitable and oscillatory cells is therefore of…
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…
We present a mechanism to generate unidirectional pulse-shaped propagating waves, tamed to exponential growth and dispersion, in active systems with nonreciprocal and nonlinear couplings. In particular, when all bulk modes are exponentially…
Based on a cellular automaton model the growth kinetics and the critical surface dynamics of cell monolayers is systematically studied by variation of the cell migration activity, the size of the proliferation zone and the cell cycle time…
The directed migration of cells toward stiffer substrate regions or durotaxis is relevant to tissue development and tumor progression. Here, we introduce a phenomenological model for single cell durotaxis that incorporates both elastic…
We present a model for mechanically-induced pattern formation in growing biological tissues and discuss its application to the development of leaf venation networks. Drawing an analogy with phase transitions in solids, we use a phase field…
We consider shear wave propagation in soft viscoelastic solids of rate type. Based on objective stress rates, the constitutive model accounts for finite strain, incompressibility, as well as stress- and strain-rate viscoelasticity. The…
This study investigates the relationship between cell shape and cell-generated stresses in confluent cell layers. Using simultaneous measurements of cell shape orientation and cell-generated contractile forces in MDCK and LP-9 colonies, we…
Within developing embryos, tissues flow and reorganize dramatically on timescales as short as minutes. This includes epithelial tissues, which often narrow and elongate in convergent extension movements due to anisotropies in external…
How the cells break symmetry and organize their edge activity to move directionally is a fun- damental question in cell biology. Physical models of cell motility commonly rely on gradients of regulatory factors and/or feedback from the…
Using a three-dimensional active vertex model, we numerically study the shapes of strained unsupported epithelial monolayers subject to active junctional noise due to stochastic binding and unbinding of myosin. We find that while uniaxial,…
It is increasingly being realized that liquid-crystalline features can play an important role in the properties and dynamics of cell monolayers. Here, we present a cell-based model of cell layers, based on the phase-field formulation, that…
During animal development and homeostasis, the structure of tissues, including muscles, blood vessels and connective tissues adapts to mechanical strains in the extracellular matrix (ECM). These strains originate from the differential…
We introduce the notion of cell division-induced activity and show that the cell division generates extensile forces and drives dynamical patterns in cell assemblies. Extending the hydrodynamic models of lyotropic active nematics we…
We construct a homogeneous, nonlinear elastic constitutive law, that models aspects of the mechanical behavior of inhomogeneous fibrin networks. Fibers in such networks buckle when in compression. We model this as a loss of stiffness in…
Although mechanical cues are crucial to tissue morphogenesis and development, the tissue mechanical stress field remains poorly characterized. Given traction force timelapse movies, as obtained by traction force microscopy of in vitro…
Mechanical signaling plays a key role in biological processes like embryo development and cancer growth. One prominent way to probe mechanical properties of tissues is to study their response to externally applied forces. Using a…
Quantifying the in-plane rheology of epithelial monolayers remains challenging due to the difficulty of imposing controlled shear. We introduce a self-driven, rheometer-like assay in which collective migration generates stationary shear…