Related papers: Tissue fluidization by cell-shape-controlled activ…
While it is commonly observed that the shape dynamics of mammalian cells can undergo large random fluctuations, theoretical models aiming at capturing cell mechanics often focus on the deterministic part of the motion. In this paper, we…
Tissues of living cells are a prime example of active fluids. There is experimental evidence that tissues generate extensile active stress even though their constituting cells are contractile. Fluctuating forces that could result from…
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…
Cell monolayers are a central model system to tissue biophysics. In vivo, epithelial tissues are curved on the scale of microns, and curvature's role in the onset of spontaneous tissue flows is still not well-understood. Here, we present a…
Large-scale tissue deformation during biological processes such as morphogenesis requires cellular rearrangements. The simplest rearrangement in confluent cellular monolayers involves neighbor exchanges among four cells, called a T1…
We present a minimal continuum model of strongly adhering cells as active contractile isotropic media and use the model to study the effect of the geometry of the adhesion patch in controlling the spatial distribution of traction and…
In biology, cells undergo deformations under the action of flow caused by the fluid surrounding them. These flows lead to shape changes and instabilities that have been explored in detail for single component vesicles. However, cell…
Cellularized tissue and polymer networks can both transition from floppy to rigid as a function of their control parameters, and, yet, the two systems often mechanically interact, which may affect their respective rigidities. To study this…
Many critical biological processes, like wound healing, require confluent cell monolayers/bulk tissues to transition from a jammed solid-like to a fluid-like state. Although numerical studies anticipate changes in the cell shape alone can…
Cell migration is important in many biological processes, including embryonic development, cancer metastasis, and wound healing. In these tissues, a cell's motion is often strongly constrained by its neighbors, leading to glassy dynamics.…
To insight the relationships between the self-organizing structures of cells, such as the cell clusters, and the properties of biotissues is helpful in revealing the function and designing biomaterial. Traditional random foam model neglects…
Epithelial monolayers are a central building block of complex organisms. Topological defects have emerged as important elements for single cell behavior in flat epithelia. Here we theoretically study such defects in a three-dimensional…
As an injury heals, an embryo develops, or a carcinoma spreads, epithelial cells systematically change their shape. In each of these processes cell shape is studied extensively, whereas variation of shape from cell-to-cell is dismissed most…
The optimal shapes attained by contractile cells on adhesive substrates are determined by the interplay between intracellular forces and adhesion with the extracellular matrix. We model the cell as a contractile film bounded by an elastic…
The maintenance of tissue and organ structures during dynamic homeostasis is often not well understood. In order for a system to be stable, cell renewal, cell migration and cell death must be finely balanced. Moreover, a tissue's shape must…
Collective cell migration in epithelia relies on cell intercalation: a local remodelling of the cellular network that allows neighbouring cells to swap their positions. Unlike foams and passive cellular fluid, in epithelial intercalation…
The mechanical behaviour and symmetry-breaking shape deformation of red blood cells subjected to shear flows is used to demonstrate that far from being random fluids, both the membrane and cytoplasm of every biological cell undergo…
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…
Understanding how cells escape from embedded spheroids requires a mechanical framework linking stress generation within cells, across cells, and between cells and the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM). We develop such a framework by…
We develop a model of amoeboid cell motility based on active gel theory. Modeling the motile apparatus of a eukaryotic cell as a confined layer of finite length of poroelastic active gel permeated by a solvent, we first show that, due to…