Related papers: Tissue evolution: Mechanical interplay of adhesion…
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…
Enzymes are on the front lines of evolution. All living organisms rely on highly efficient, specific enzymes for growth, sustenance, and reproduction; and many diseases are a consequence of a mutation on an enzyme that affects its catalytic…
Environmental and genetic mutations can transform the cells in a co-operating healthy tissue into an ecosystem of individualistic tumour cells that compete for space and resources. Various selection forces are responsible for driving the…
Mutations in a microbial population can increase the frequency of a genotype not only by increasing its exponential growth rate, but also by decreasing its lag time or adjusting the yield (resource efficiency). The contribution of multiple…
Tissue growth kinetics and interface dynamics depend on the properties of the tissue environment and cell-cell interactions. In cellular environments, substrate heterogeneity and geometry arise from a variety factors, such as the structure…
Antibiotic resistance is a growing public health problem. To gain a fundamental understanding of resistance evolution, a combination of systematic experimental and theoretical approaches is required. Evolution experiments combined with…
Multicellular organisms comprise a diverse collection of stable tissues built from different cell types. It remains unclear how large numbers of interacting cells can precisely coordinate their gene expression during tissue…
Most cancers in humans are large, measuring centimeters in diameter, composed of many billions of cells. An equivalent mass of normal cells would be highly heterogeneous as a result of the mutations that occur during each cell division.…
Animal cells are active, contractile objects. While bioassays address the molecular characterization of cell contractility, the mechanical characterization of the active forces in cells remains challenging. Here by confronting theoretical…
The size and shape of a large variety of polymeric particles, including biological cells, star polymers, dendrimes, and microgels, depend on the applied stresses as the particles are extremely soft. In high-density suspensions these…
Large-scale tissue deformation which is fundamental to tissue development hinges on local cellular rearrangements, such as T1 transitions. In the realm of the multi-phase field model, we analyse the statistical and dynamical properties of…
Most of the DNA that composes a complex organism is non-coding and defined as junk. Even the coding part is composed of genes that affect the phenotype differently. Therefore, a random mutation has an effect on the specimen fitness that…
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…
Cell deformability is an essential determinant for tissue-scale mechanical nature, such as fluidity and rigidity, and is thus crucial for understanding tissue homeostasis and stable developmental processes. However, numerical simulations…
Molecular phenotypes are important links between genomic information and organismic functions, fitness, and evolution. Complex phenotypes, which are also called quantitative traits, often depend on multiple genomic loci. Their evolution…
The growth of a tissue, which depends on cell-cell interactions and biologically relevant process such as cell division and apoptosis, is regulated by a mechanical feedback mechanism. We account for these effects in a minimal…
Complex tumor-host interactions can significantly affect the growth dynamics and morphologies of progressing neoplasms. The growth of a confined solid tumor induces mechanical pressure and deformation of the surrounding microenvironment,…
Cell neighbor exchanges play a critical role in regulating tissue fluidity during epithelial morphogenesis and repair. In vivo, these neighbor exchanges are often hindered by the formation of transiently stable four-fold vertices, which can…
Heterogeneity within tumour cell populations is associated with an increase in malignancy and appears to play an important role during cancer metastasis. Using in silico experiments, we study the interplay between collective behaviours and…
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…