Related papers: Simple mechanical cues could explain adipose tissu…
This paper investigates cells proliferation dynamics in small tumor cell aggregates using an individual based model (IBM). The simulation model is designed to study the morphology of the cell population and of the cell lineages as well as…
Active solids consist of elastically coupled out-of-equilibrium units performing work. They are central to autonomous processes, such as locomotion, self-oscillations and rectification, in biological systems,designer materials and robotics.…
We study theoretically the shapes of biological tubes affected by various pathologies. When epithelial cells grow at an uncontrolled rate, the negative tension produced by their division provokes a buckling instability. Several shapes are…
Collagen forms the structural scaffold of connective tissues in all mammals. Tissues are remarkably resistant against mechanical deformations because collagen molecules hierarchically self-assemble in fibrous networks that stiffen with…
Cartilage is a connective tissue that covers the surfaces of bones in joints and provides a smooth gliding surface for movement. It is characterized by specific biophysical properties that allow it to withstand compressive loads, distribute…
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…
The mammalian cell membrane is embedded with biomolecular condensates of protein and lipid clusters, which interact with an underlying viscoelastic cytoskeleton network to organize the cell surface and mechanically interact with the…
The self-assembly of molecules at surfaces can be caused by a range of physical mechanisms. Assembly can be driven by intermolecular forces, or molecule-surface forces, or both; it can result in structures that are in equilibrium or that…
The self-assembly of particles into organized structures is a key feature of living organisms and a major engineering challenge. While it may proceed through the binding of perfectly matched, puzzle-pieces-like particles, many other…
The evolution of various competing cell types in tissues, and the resulting persistent tissue population, is studied numerically and analytically in a particle-based model of active tissues. Mutations change the properties of cells in…
Large-scale force generation is essential for biological functions such as cell motility, embryonic development, and muscle contraction. In these processes, forces generated at the molecular level by motor proteins are transmitted by…
Groups of cells, including clusters of cancerous cells, multicellular organisms, and developing organs, may both grow and break apart. What physical factors control these fractures? In these processes, what sets the eventual size of…
Atherosclerosis is characterised by the growth of fatty plaques in the inner (intimal) layer of the artery wall. In mature plaques, vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) are recruited from the adjacent medial layer to deposit a cap of fibrous…
Biological tissues exhibit diverse mechanical and rheological behaviors during morphogenesis. While much is known about tissue phase transitions controlled by structural order and cell mechanics, key questions regarding how tissue-scale…
The spontaneous generation of electrical activity underpins a number of essential physiological processes, and is observed even in tissues where specialized pacemaker cells have not been identified. The emergence of periodic oscillations in…
Metabolic networks consist of linked functional components, or modules. The mechanism underlying metabolic network modularity is of great interest not only to researchers of basic science but also to those in fields of engineering. Previous…
Inspired by motile cells in tissue formation, we find that active systems of self-aligning adhesive particles undergo ballistic aggregation through a flocking transition. This kinetic regime emerges when the cluster persistence length grows…
Collective cell motions underlie structure formation during embryonic development. Tissues exhibit emergent multicellular characteristics such as jamming, rigidity transitions, and glassy dynamics, but there remain questions about how those…
Epithelial cell clusters often move collectively on a substrate. Mechanical signals play a major role in organizing this behavior. There are a number of experimental observations in these systems which await a comprehensive explanation.…
Active cell-junction remodeling is important for tissue morphogenesis, yet its underlying physics is not understood. We study a mechanical model that describes junctions as dynamic active force dipoles. Their instability can trigger cell…