Related papers: Mechanical behavior of multi-cellular spheroids un…
Multicellular tumor spheroids are an important {\it in vitro} model of the pre-vascular phase of solid tumors, for sizes well below the diagnostic limit: therefore a biophysical model of spheroids has the ability to shed light on the…
Uncontrolled growth of tumor cells in confined spaces leads to the accumulation of compressive stress within the tumor. Although the effects of tension within 3D extracellular matrices on tumor growth and invasion are well established, the…
One of the hallmarks of pre-migratory tumors is the progressive loss of compact morphology. To investigate how tumors may intrinsically regulate their shape during growth, we employ a three-dimensional (3D) vertex model of multicellular…
We describe a viscocapillary instability that can perturb the spherical symmetry of cellular aggregates in culture, also called multicellular spheroids. In the condition where the cells constituting the spheroid get their necessary…
We extend the continuum theory of active nematic fluids to study cell flows and tissue dynamics inside multicellular spheroids, spherical, self-assembled aggregates of cells that are widely used as model systems to study tumour dynamics.…
Growing experimental evidence highlights the relevant role of mechanics in the physiology of solid tumours, even in their early stages. While most of the mathematical models describe tumour growth as a volumetric increase of mass in the…
Spheroids are aggregates of cells that can mimic the cellular organization often found in tissues. They are typically formed through the self-assembly of cells in a culture where there is a promotion of interactions and cell-to-cell…
Cell spheroids are a widely used model to investigate cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions in a 3D microenvironment in vitro. Most research on cell spheroids has been focused on their response to various stimuli under static conditions.…
Morphological instabilities of growing tissues that impinge on passive materials are typical of invasive cancers. To explain these instabilities in experiments on breast epithelial spheroids in an extracellular matrix, we develop a…
Clinically, palpation is one of the important diagnostic methods to assess tumor malignancy. In laboratory research, it is well accepted that the bulk stiffness of the tumor and the surrounding tissue is closely correlated with the…
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…
Growth drives cellular dynamics in dense aggregates including bacterial colonies, developing tissues, and tumors. We investigate the underlying physical principles emerging from the interplay of growth, steric repulsion, and motility in a…
The inverse geometric approach to the modeling of the growth of circular objects revealing required features, such as the velocity of the growth and fractal behavior of their contours, is presented. It enables to reproduce some of the…
Cell spheroids are in vitro multicellular model systems that mimic the crowded micro-environment of biological tissues. Their mechanical characterization can provide valuable insights in how single-cell mechanics and cell-cell interactions…
Tumor spheroids are in vitro three-dimensional, cellular collectives consisting of cancerous cells. Embedding these spheroids in an in vitro fibrous environment, such as a collagen network, to mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM) provides…
Tumour spheroids have been the focus of a variety of mathematical models, ranging from Greenspan's classical study of the 1970s through to contemporary agent-based models. Of the many factors that regulate spheroid growth, mechanical…
The rheology of biological cells is not only determined by their cytoskeletal networks, but also by the molecular motors that crosslink and contract them. Recently it has been found that the assemblies of myosin II molecular motors in…
Collective cell movement, characterized by multiple cells that are in contact for substantial periods of time and undergo correlated motion, plays a central role in cancer and embryogenesis. Recent imaging experiments have provided…
Most organisms grow according to simple laws, which in principle can be derived from energy conservation and scaling arguments, critically dependent on the relation between the metabolic rate B of energy flow and the organism mass m.…
The precise role of the microenvironment on tumor growth is poorly understood. Whereas the tumor is in constant competition with the surrounding tissue, little is known about the mechanics of this interaction. Using a novel experimental…