Related papers: Active wetting of epithelial tissues: modeling con…
As the cover of embryos and adult organisms, epithelial tissues are subjected to substantial mechanical forces in tissue morphogenesis. However, the finite deformation behaviors of epithelial tissues remain largely unexplored. This study…
We use a computational phase-field model together with analytical analysis to study how inter-cellular active forces can mediate individual cell morphology and collective motion in a confluent cell monolayer. Contractile inter-cellular…
During embryonic morphogenesis, tissues undergo dramatic deformations in order to form functional organs. Similarly, in adult animals, living cells and tissues are continually subjected to forces and deformations. Therefore, the success of…
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…
Many types of motile cells perform durotaxis, namely, directed migration following gradients of substrate stiffness. Recent experiments have revealed that cell monolayers can migrate toward stiffer regions even when individual cells do not…
Although understanding the collective migration of cells, such as that seen in epithelial sheets, is essential for understanding diseases such as metastatic cancer, this motion is not yet as well characterized as individual cell migration.…
During the early-stages of embryo development, morphogenesis--- the emergence of shape and form in living organisms--- is almost exclusively associated with monolayers of tightly bound epithelial cells. To understand how such tissues change…
Transitions between solid-like and fluid-like states in living tissues have been found in steps of embryonic development and in stages of disease progression. Our current understanding of these transitions has been guided by experimental…
In living cells, protein-rich condensates can wet the cell membrane and surfaces of membrane-bound organelles. Interestingly, many phase-separating proteins also bind to membranes leading to a molecular layer of bound molecules. Here we…
Maintenance of epidermal thickness is critical to the barrier function of the skin. Decreased tissue thickness, specifically in the stratum corneum (the outermost layer of the tissue), causes discomfort and inflammation, and is related to…
Models for confluent biological tissues often describe the network formed by cells as a triple-junction network, similar to foams. However, higher order vertices or multicellular rosettes are prevalent in developmental and {\it in vitro}…
The relationship between velocities, tractions, and intercellular stresses in the migrating epithelial monolayer are currently unknown. Ten years ago, a method known as Monolayer Stress Microscopy (MSM) was suggested from which the…
In cell extrusion, a cell embedded in an epithelial monolayer loses its apical or basal surface and is subsequently squeezed out of the monolayer by neighboring cells. Cell extrusions occur during apoptosis, epithelial-mesenchymal…
Epithelial tissues play a fundamental role in various morphogenetic events during development and early embryogenesis. Although epithelial monolayers are often modeled as two-dimensional (2D) elastic surfaces, they distinguish themselves…
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…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion to the mechanical properties of the environment in which they find themselves--crawling in some environments while swimming in others. The latter can involve…
Animal morphogenesis often involves significant shape changes of epithelial tissue sheets. Great progress has been made in understanding the underlying cellular driving forces and their coordination through biomechanical feedback loops.…
The transition of an epithelial layer from a stationary, quiescent state to a highly migratory, dynamic state is required for wound healing, development, and regeneration. This transition, known as the unjamming transition (UJT), is…
We investigate morphologies of proliferating cellular tissues using a newly developed numerical simulation model for mechanical cell division and migration in 2D. The model is applied to a bimodal mixture consisting of stiff cells with a…
Coordinated movements of epithelia tissue are linked with active matter processes. We here consider the influence of curvature on the spatiotemporal arrangements and the shapes of the cells. The cells are represented by a multiphase field…