Related papers: Strain rate controls alignment in growing bacteria…
We consider a cellular monolayer, described using a vertex-based model, for which cells form a spatially disordered array of convex polygons that tile the plane. Equilibrium cell configurations are assumed to minimize a global energy…
Experiments show that when a monolayer of cells cultured on an elastic substrate is subject to a cyclic stretch, cells tend to re-orient either perpendicularly or at an oblique angle with respect to the main direction of the stretch. Due to…
The ability of cells to reorganize in response to external stimuli is important in areas ranging from morphogenesis to tissue engineering. Elongated cells can co-align due to steric effects, forming states with local order. We show that…
Cells in an epithelial monolayer coordinate motion with their neighbors giving rise to collectively moving packs of sizes spanning multiple cell diameters. The physical mechanism controlling the pack size, however, remains unclear. A…
Bacterial colonies are abundant on living and nonliving surfaces and are known to mediate a broad range of processes in ecology, medicine, and industry. Although extensively researched, from single cells to demographic scales, a…
Colonies of rod-shaped bacteria constitute a system of colloidal active matter with nematic properties. As a single initial bacterium multiplies through repeated divisions, the resulting colony quickly loses long-range orientational order,…
The study of spindle-like cells as nematic liquid crystals has led to remarkable insights in the understanding of tissue organization and morphogenesis. In the characterization of this anomalous liquid crystal material, we focus on the…
The transition from monolayers to multilayered structures in bacterial colonies is a fundamental step in biofilm development. Observed across different morphotypes and species, this transition is triggered within freely growing bacterial…
Cell sorting, the segregation of cells with different properties into distinct domains, is a key phenomenon in biological processes such as embryogenesis. We use a phase-field model of a confluent cell layer to study the role of activity in…
Coordinated and cooperative motion of cells is essential for embryonic development, tissue morphogenesis, wound healing and cancer invasion. A predictive understanding of the emergent mechanical behaviors in collective cell motion is…
The importance of collective cellular migration during embryogenesis and tissue repair asks for a sound understanding of underlying principles and mechanisms. Here, we address recent in vitro experiments on cell monolayers which show that…
Chloroplasts regulate their growth to optimize photosynthesis. Quantitative data shows that the ratio of total chloroplast area to mesophyll cell area is constant across different cells within a single species, and also across species.…
We investigate the dynamics of a colony of crawling, proliferating cells with a minimal, mechanical cell model. The cells consist of two disks, modelling the cell body and a pseudopod, connected by a finite extensible spring. The cells…
Collective cell migration contributes to embryogenesis, wound healing and tumor metastasis. Cell monolayer migration experiments help understanding what determines the movement of cells far from the leading edge. Inhibiting cell…
In growing plant cells, parallel ordering of microtubules (MTs) along the inner surface of the cell membrane influences the direction of cell expansion and thereby plant morphology. For correct expansion of organs that primarily grow by…
The orientational order in vertically agitated granular rod monolayers is investigated experimentally and compared quantitatively with equilibrium Monte Carlo simulations and density functional theory. At sufficiently high number density,…
Spatially ordered systems confined to surfaces such as spheres exhibit interesting topological structures because of curvature induced frustration in orientational as well as translational order. The study of these structures is important…
Two-dimensional ensembles of bent-core shaped molecules attain at highly orienting surfaces liquid crystalline structures characteristic mostly for lamellar chiral or nonchiral antiferroelectric order. Here, using the Onsager-type of…
Active nematics are the nonequilibrium analog of passive liquid crystals in which anisotropic units consume free energy to drive emergent behavior. Similar to liquid crystal (LC) molecules in displays, ordering and dynamics in active…
Growth and shape formation in crowded multicellular assemblies arise from the interplay of chemical gradients, single-cell expansion and mechanical interactions, making it essential to understand how these processes jointly shape collective…