Related papers: Epithelial layer fluidization by curvature-induced…
Transitions from quiescence to collective migration in epithelia underlie wound healing and cancer invasion, yet their physical origin remains poorly understood. Here we show that quiescent epithelial monolayers store spatially contractile…
We present an orthotropic elastic analysis of frictional granular layers under gravity by studying their stress response to a localized overload at the layer surface for several substrate tilt angles. The distance to the unjamming…
Collective cell migration is a key driver of embryonic development, wound healing, and some types of cancer invasion. Here we provide a physical perspective of the mechanisms underlying collective cell migration. We begin with a catalogue…
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.…
A detailed understanding of the interface between living cells and substrate materials is of rising importance in many fields of medicine, biology and biotechnology. Cells at interfaces often form epithelia. The physical barrier that they…
We investigate how randomly oriented cell traction forces lead to fluidisation in a vertex model of epithelial tissues. We find that the fluidisation occurs at a critical value of the traction force magnitude $F_c$. We show that this…
During development and under normal physiological conditions, biological tissues are continuously subjected to substantial mechanical stresses. In response to large deformations cells in a tissue must undergo multicellular rearrangements in…
A cardinal feature common to embryonic development and tissue reorganization, as well as to wound healing and cancer cell invasion, is collective cellular migration. During collective migratory events the phenomena of cell jamming and…
Cellular contractility, migration, and extracellular matrix (ECM) mechanics are critical for a wide range of biological processes including embryonic development, wound healing, tissue morphogenesis, and regeneration. Even though the…
Cellular decision making allows cells to assume functionally different phenotypes in response to microenvironmental cues, without genetic change. It is an open question, how individual cell decisions influence the dynamics at the tissue…
Development, regeneration and cancer involve drastic transitions in tissue morphology. In analogy with the behavior of inert fluids, some of these transitions have been interpreted as wetting transitions. The validity and scope of this…
The investigation of collective behaviour in dense assemblies of self-propelled active particles has been motivated by a wide range of biological phenomena. Of particular interest are dynamical transitions of cellular and sub-cellular…
Cell migration plays a fundamental role in numerous physiological processes, including embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. While cell-cell adhesion is known to regulate motion by shaping cell morphology and…
The skin forms an efficient barrier against the environment, and rapid cutaneous wound healing after injury is therefore essential. Healing of the uppermost layer of the skin, the epidermis, involves collective migration of keratinocytes,…
Living tissues undergo wetting transitions: On a surface, they can either form a droplet-like cell aggregate or spread as a monolayer of migrating cells. Tissue wetting depends not only on the chemical but also on the mechanical properties…
Self-organization, and transitions from reversible to irreversible behaviour, of interacting particle assemblies driven by externally imposed stresses or deformation is of interest in comprehending diverse phenomena in soft matter. They…
The transition between epithelial and mesenchymal (EMT) is a fundamental cellular process that plays critical roles in development, cancer metastasis, and tissue wound healing. EMT is not a binary process but involves multiple partial EMT…
Epithelization, the process whereby an epithelium covers a cell-free surface, is not only central to wound healing but also pivotal in embryonic morphogenesis, regeneration, and cancer. In the context of wound healing, the epithelization…
Jamming is a ubiquitous phenomenon that appears in many soft matter systems, including granular materials, foams, colloidal suspensions, emulsions, polymers, and cells -- when jamming occurs, the system undergoes a transition from flow-like…
The response of cell populations to external stimuli plays a central role in biological mechanical processes such as epithelial wound healing and developmental morphogenesis. Wave-like propagation of a signal of ERK MAP kinase has been…