Related papers: Elastic interactions compete with persistent cell …
Cellular self-assembly and organization are fundamental steps for the development of biological tissues. In this paper, within the framework of a cellular automata model, we address how an ordered tissue pattern spontaneously emerges from a…
Recent experimental studies have demonstrated that cellular motion can be directed by topographical gradients, such as those resulting from spatial variations in the features of a micropatterned substrate. This phenomenon, known as…
Chemotaxis combines three processes: directional sensing, polarity reorientation and migration. Directed migration plays an important role in immune response, metastasis, wound healing and development. To describe chemotaxis, we extend a…
Control of cell proliferation is a fundamental aspect of tissue physiology central to morphogenesis, wound healing and cancer. Although many of the molecular genetic factors are now known, the system level regulation of growth is still…
The spatiotemporal coordination and regulation of cell proliferation is fundamental in many aspects of development and tissue maintenance. Cells have the ability to adapt their division rates in response to mechanical constraints, yet we do…
We study interactions between biological cells that apply anisotropic active mechanical forces on an elastic substrate. We model the cells as thin discs that along their perimeters apply radial, but angle-dependent forces on the substrate.…
We present a new kinetic equation for cell migration driven by mechanical interactions with the substrate, an effect not previously captured in kinetic models, and essential for explaining observed collective behaviors such as those in…
Cell crawling requires the generation of intracellular forces by the cytoskeleton and their transmission to an extracellular substrate through specific adhesion molecules. Crawling cells show many features of excitable systems, such as…
The collective migration of epithelial groups of cells plays a central role in processes such as embryo development, wound healing, and cancer invasion. While finite cell clusters are known to collectively migrate in response to external…
Cell-to-cell variability is inherent to numerous biological processes, including cell migration. Quantifying and characterizing the variability of migrating cells is challenging, as it requires monitoring many cells for long time windows…
The unique nonlinear mechanics of the fibrous extracellular matrix (ECM) facilitates long-range cell-cell mechanical communications that would be impossible on linear elastic substrates. Past research has described the contribution of two…
The conditions under which biological cells switch from a static to a motile state are fundamental to the understanding of many healthy and pathological processes. In this paper, we show that even in the presence of a fully symmetric…
Understanding cellular response to mechanical forces is immensely important for a plethora of biological processes. Focal adhesions are multi-molecular protein assemblies that connect the cell to the extracellular matrix and play a pivotal…
Many fundamental biological processes are dependent on cellular migration. Although the mechanical mechanisms of single-cell migration are relatively well understood, those underlying migration of multiple cells adhered to each other in a…
An adequate control of cell response in tissue engineering applications is of utmost importance to obtain products suitable to clinical practice. This paper is the first part of a series of two connected publications in which we study via…
Substrate-based cell motility is essential for fundamental biological processes, such as tissue growth, wound healing and immune response. Even if a comprehensive understanding of this motility mode remains elusive, progress has been…
Tuning cell rearrangements is essential in collective cell movement that underlies cancer progression, wound repair, and embryonic development. A key question is how tissue material properties and morphology emerge from cellular factors…
Cell division and death can be regulated by the mechanical forces within a tissue. We study the consequences for the stability and roughness of a propagating interface, by analysing a model of mechanically-regulated tissue growth in the…
Living cells respond to mechanical changes in the matrix surrounding them by applying contractile forces that are in turn transmitted to distant cells. We calculate the mechanical work that each cell performs in order to deform the matrix,…
Self-organisation of individuals within large collectives occurs throughout biology. Mathematical models can help elucidate the individual-level mechanisms behind these dynamics, but analytical tractability often comes at the cost of…