Related papers: Shape and size changes of adherent elastic epithel…
There is now growing evidence of the emergence and biological functionality of liquid crystal features, including nematic order and topological defects, in cellular tissues. However, how such features that intrinsically rely on particle…
Fluid deformable surfaces are ubiquitous in cell and tissue biology, including lipid bilayers, the actomyosin cortex, or epithelial cell sheets. These interfaces exhibit a complex interplay between elasticity, low Reynolds number…
A constitutive relation between stress and strain relative to a reference state is the basic assumption of elasticity theory. However, in living matter, force generation is governed by motor molecule activity, which does not depend on…
We propose a simple mathematical model to describe the mechanical relaxation of cells within a curved epithelial tissue layer represented by an arbitrary curve in two-dimensional space. This model generalises previous one-dimensional models…
In tissue development, wound healing, and cancer invasion, coordinated cell motion arises from active forces produced by the cells. The relationship between force and motion remains unclear, however, because the forces result from a sum of…
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,…
Inspired by recent experiments that highlight the role of nematic defects in the morphogenesis of epithelial tissues, we develop a minimal framework to study the dynamics of an active curved surface driven by its nematic texture. Allowing…
The mechanical behaviour of solid biological tissues has long been described using models based on classical continuum mechanics. However, the classical continuum theories of elasticity and viscoelasticity cannot easily capture the…
Studying shape changing thick surfaces induced by differential growth helps us understand morphogenesis in biology and offers opportunities for device design. While ideal 2D differential growth maps have been well studied for both isotropic…
The vertex model of epithelia describes the apical surface of a tissue as a tiling of polygonal cells, with a mechanical energy governed by deviations in cell shape from preferred, or target, area, $A_0$, and perimeter, $P_0$. The model…
A two-dimensional mathematical model for dynamics of endothelial cells in angiogenesis is investigated. Angiogenesis is a morphogenic process in which new blood vessels emerge from an existing vascular network. Recently a one-dimensional…
Active solids consume energy to allow for actuation, shape change, and wave propagation not possible in equilibrium. Whereas active interfaces have been realized across many experimental systems, control of three-dimensional (3D) bulk…
Active matter is characterized by its ability to induce motion by self-generated stress. In the case of a solid, such motion can lead to shape transformations. The stress-generating components can be anisotropic endowing the material with…
Large deformations play a central role in the shape transformations of slender active and biological structures. A classical example is the eversion of the Volvox embryo, which demonstrates the need for shell theories that can describe…
We introduce a novel model, comprising self-avoiding surfaces and incorporating edges and tubules, that is designed to characterize the structural morphologies and transitions observed within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). By employing…
We perform numerical simulations to study self-assembly of nanoparticles mediated by an elastic planar surface. We show how the nontrivial elastic response to deformations of these surfaces leads to anisotropic interactions between the…
The rheology of biological tissue plays an important role in many processes, from organ formation to cancer invasion. Here, we use a multi-phase field model of motile cells to simulate active microrheology within a tissue monolayer. When…
We perform cell segmentation on images from experimental studies of confluent, mobile cells in epithelial monolayers and show that these systems possess a broad, positively-skewed shape parameter distribution $P(\mathcal{A})$, where…
The recent discovery of electro-active polymers has shown great promises in the field of soft robotics, and was logically followed by experimental, numerical and theoretical developments. Most of these studies were concerned with systems…
During growth, tissue expands and deforms. Given its elastic properties, stresses emerge in an expanding and deforming tissue. Cell rearrangements can dissipate these stresses and numerous experiments confirm the viscoelastic properties of…