Related papers: Cell size heterogeneity controls crystallization o…
Cells coexist together in colonies or as tissues. Their behaviour is controlled by an interplay between intercellular forces and biochemical regulation. We develop a simple model of the cell cycle, the fundamental regulatory network…
While the physics of disordered packing in non-growing systems is well understood, unexplored phenomena can emerge when packing takes place in growing domains. We study the arrangements of pigment cells (chromatophores) on squid skin as a…
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…
We propose a simple mathematical model to describe the mechanical relaxation of cells within a curved epithelial tissue layer represented by an arbitrary curve in two-dimensional space. This model generalises previous one-dimensional models…
Within developing embryos, tissues flow and reorganize dramatically on timescales as short as minutes. This includes epithelial tissues, which often narrow and elongate in convergent extension movements due to anisotropies in external…
Cells actively regulate their size during the cell cycle to maintain volume homeostasis across generations. While various mathematical models of cell size regulation have been proposed to explain how this is achieved, relating these models…
The envelopes covering bacterial cytoplasm possess remarkable elastic properties. They are rigid enough to resist large pressures while being flexible enough to adapt to growth under environmental constraints. Similarly, the virus shells…
The application of single-cell molecular profiling coupled with spatial technologies has enabled charting cellular heterogeneity in reference tissues and in disease. This new wave of molecular data has highlighted the expected diversity of…
Coherent angular rotation of epithelial cells is thought to contribute to many vital physiological processes including tissue morphogenesis and glandular formation. However, factors regulating this motion, and the implications of this…
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…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
We present a model for cell growth, division and packing under soft constraints that arise from the deformability of the cells as well as of a membrane that encloses them. Our treatment falls within the framework of diffuse interface…
Collective cell migration plays a crucial role in many developmental processes that underlie morphogenesis, wound healing, or cancer progression. In such coordinated behaviours, cells are organised in coherent structures and actively…
We investigate a model of cell division in which the length of telomeres within the cell regulate their proliferative potential. At each cell division the ends of linear chromosomes change and a cell becomes senescent when one or more of…
A recent experiment on zebrafish blastoderm morphogenesis showed that the viscosity ({\eta}) of a non-confluent embryonic tissue grows sharply until a critical cell packing fraction ({\phi}S). The increase in {\eta} up to {\phi}S is similar…
Cell spreading is investigated at various scales in order to understand motility of living cells which is essential for a range of physiological activities in higher organisms as well as in microbes. At a microscopic scale, it has been seen…
Cells are dynamic systems characterized by temporal variations in biophysical properties such as stiffness and contractility. Recent studies show that the recruitment and release of actin filaments into and out of the cell cortex - a…
Since the lipid raft model was developed at the end of the last century, it became clear that the specific molecular arrangements of phospholipid assemblies within a membrane have profound implications in a vast range of physiological…
Cell invasion and spatial pattern formation are two distinct manifestations of cellular self-organisation in development, regeneration, and disease. Here, we develop and analyse a unified theoretical framework that links these two seemingly…
Cell growth in size is a complex process coordinated by intrinsic and environmental signals. In a recent work [Tzur et al., Science, 2009, 325:167-171], size distributions in an exponentially growing population of mammalian cells were used…