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Animal morphogenesis involves complex tissue deformation processes, which require tight control over tissue rheology. Yet, it remains insufficiently understood how tissue rheology results from the interplay between cellular packing and…
Cell monolayers and epithelial tissues display slow dynamics during the liquid-glass transitions, a phenomenon with direct relevance to embryogenesis, tumor metastases, and wound healing. In active cells, persistent motion and cell…
Many biological tissues feature a heterogeneous network of fibers whose tensile and bending rigidity contribute substantially to these tissues' elastic properties. Rigidity percolation has emerged as a important paradigm for relating these…
Single and collective cellular oscillations involving the actomyosin cytoskeleton have been observed in numerous biological systems. We show here that a generic model of a contractile material, which is turning over and contracts against an…
The coordinated behaviors of epithelial cells are widely observed in tissue development, such as re-epithelialization, tumor growth, and morphogenesis. In these processes, cells either migrate collectively or organize themselves into…
Epithelial cell layers on soft elastic substrates or pillar arrays are commonly used as model systems for investigating the role of force in tissue growth, maintenance and repair. Here we show analytically that the experimentally observed…
Protrusions at the leading-edge of a cell play an important role in sensing the extracellular cues, during cellular spreading and motility. Recent studies provided indications that these protrusions wrap (coil) around the extra-cellular…
During growth, tissue expands and deforms. Given its elastic properties, stresses emerge in an expanding and deforming tissue. Cell rearrangements can dissipate these stresses and numerous experiments confirm the viscoelastic properties of…
Recent work on particle-based models of tissues has suggested that any finite rate of cell division and cell death is sufficient to fluidize an epithelial tissue. At the same time, experimental evidence has indicated the existence of glassy…
Living soft tissues appear to promote the development and maintenance of a preferred mechanical state within a defined tolerance around a so-called set-point. This phenomenon is often referred to as mechanical homeostasis. In contradiction…
Epithelial spreading is a common and fundamental aspect of various developmental and disease-related processes such as epithelial closure and wound healing. A key challenge for epithelial tissues undergoing spreading is to increase their…
In many physical systems, degrees of freedom are coupled \emph{via} hydrodynamic forces, even in the absence of Hamiltonian interactions. A particularly important and widespread example concerns the transport of microscopic particles in…
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…
Epithelial tissues act as barriers and, therefore, must repair themselves, respond to environmental changes and grow without compromising their integrity. Consequently, they exhibit complex viscoelastic rheological behavior where…
Oscillatory behaviour in force-generating systems is a pervasive phenomenon in cell biology. In this work, we investigate how oscillations in the actomyosin cytoskeleton drive cell shape changes during the process of Dorsal Closure, a…
The rigidity of elastic networks depends sensitively on their internal connectivity and the nature of the interactions between constituents. Particles interacting via central forces undergo a zero-temperature rigidity-percolation transition…
Biological membranes are complex, dynamic structures essential for cellular compartmentalization, signaling, and mechanical integrity. The molecular organization of eukaryotic membranes has been extensively studied, including the lipid…
Contraction of the cytokinetic ring during cell division leads to physical partitioning of a eukaryotic cell into two daughter cells. This involves flows of actin filaments and myosin motors in the growing membrane interface at the…
The actomyosin cortex, a thin layer of a cross-linked polymer network near the cell surface, generates active forces that are responsible for cell shape changes. Many developmental processes that involve such cell shape changes, most…
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.…