Related papers: Cell strain-stiffening drives cell breakout from e…
One of the hallmarks of pre-migratory tumors is the progressive loss of compact morphology. To investigate how tumors may intrinsically regulate their shape during growth, we employ a three-dimensional (3D) vertex model of multicellular…
A new relaxation approach is proposed which allows for the description of stress- and strain-softening at finite strains. The model is based on the construction of a convex hull replacing the originally non-convex incremental stress…
We theoretically explore fluidization of epithelial tissues by active T1 neighbor exchanges. We show that the geometry of cell-cell junctions encodes important information about the local features of the energy landscape, which we support…
The motility of a cell can be triggered or inhibited not only by an applied force but also by a mechanically neutral force couple. This type of loading, represented by an applied stress and commonly interpreted as either squeezing or…
Photoelasticity is employed to investigate the stress state near stiff rectangular and rhombohedral inclusions embedded in a 'soft' elastic plate. Results show that the singular stress field predicted by the linear elastic solution for the…
Viewed under a fluorescence microscope, the actomyosin cytoskeleton presents vivid streaks of lines together with persistent oscillatory waves. Using an active hydrodynamic approach, we show how a uniform distribution of single or mixture…
The balance between stretching and bending deformations characterizes shape transitions of thin elastic sheets. While stretching dominates the mechanical response in tension, bending dominates in compression after an abrupt buckling…
We describe a viscocapillary instability that can perturb the spherical symmetry of cellular aggregates in culture, also called multicellular spheroids. In the condition where the cells constituting the spheroid get their necessary…
Adhesive cell-substrate interactions are crucial for cell motility and are responsible for the necessary traction that propels cells. These interactions can also change the shape of the cell, analogous to liquid droplet wetting on adhesive…
Experiments suggest that the migration of some cells in the three-dimensional extra cellular matrix bears strong resemblance to one-dimensional cell migration. Motivated by this observation, we construct and study a minimal one-dimensional…
The mechanical properties of biological materials are spatially heterogeneous. Typical tissues are made up of a spanning fibrous extracellular matrix in which various inclusions, such as living cells, are embedded. While the influence of…
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…
Adhering cells actively probe the mechanical properties of their environment and use the resulting information to position and orient themselves. We show that a large body of experimental observations can be consistently explained from one…
Morphogenesis depends crucially on the complex rheological properties of cell tissues and on their ability to maintain mechanical integrity while rearranging at long times. In this paper, we study the rheology of polygonal cellular networks…
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 rheological properties of biological tissues are core to processes such as cancer metastasis, wound healing and embryo development. The emergence of tissue and organ structures during morphogenesis requires the precise formation of…
Abnormal electrical activity from the boundaries of ischemic cardiac tissue is recognized as one of the major causes in generation of ischemia-reperfusion arrhythmias. Here we present theoretical analysis of the waves of electrical activity…
Branched actin networks at the leading edge of a crawling cell evolve via protein-regulated processes such as polymerization, depolymerization, capping, branching, and severing. A formulation of these processes is presented and analyzed to…
The mechanism by which a patterned state accommodates the breaking of translational symmetry by a phase boundary or a sample wall has been addressed in the context of Landau branching in type-I superconductors, refinement of magnetic…
Spheroids are aggregates of cells that can mimic the cellular organization often found in tissues. They are typically formed through the self-assembly of cells in a culture where there is a promotion of interactions and cell-to-cell…