Related papers: Cell divisions suppress dynamical correlations in …
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…
We present a hydrodynamic theory to describe shear flows in developing epithelial tissues. We introduce hydrodynamic fields corresponding to state properties of constituent cells as well as a contribution to overall tissue shear flow due to…
Biological cells in soft materials can be modeled as anisotropic force contraction dipoles. The corresponding elastic interaction potentials are long-ranged ($\sim 1/r^3$ with distance $r$) and depend sensitively on elastic constants,…
Connecting cell behavior to tissue shape and mechanics is a key challenge in the physics of morphogenesis. Cytoskeletal turnover precludes a fixed reference state, and tensions are actively generated independently of strain; so conventional…
Biological tissues exhibit diverse mechanical and rheological behaviors during morphogenesis. While much is known about tissue phase transitions controlled by structural order and cell mechanics, key questions regarding how tissue-scale…
Cell neighbor exchanges play a critical role in regulating tissue fluidity during epithelial morphogenesis and repair. In vivo, these neighbor exchanges are often hindered by the formation of transiently stable four-fold vertices, which can…
Biological tissues exhibit complex behaviors with their dynamics often resembling inert soft matter such as liquids, polymers, colloids, and liquid crystals. These analogies enable physics-based approaches for investigations of emergent…
Active cell-junction remodeling is important for tissue morphogenesis, yet its underlying physics is not understood. We study a mechanical model that describes junctions as dynamic active force dipoles. Their instability can trigger cell…
Jammed soft disks exhibit avalanches of particle rearrangements under quasistatic shear. We follow the avalanches using steepest descent to decompose them into individual localized rearrangements. We characterize the local structural…
A number of factors, such as, cell-cell interactions and self-propulsion of cells driven by cytoskeletal forces determine tissue morphologies and dynamics. To explore the interplay between these factors in controlling the dynamics at the…
Our fluid dynamics video shows the response of a layer of viscoelastic fluid to an array of four-roll mills steadily rotating underneath. When the relaxation time of the fluid is sufficiently long, the fluid divides into "cells" with a…
Cell layers eliminate unwanted cells through the extrusion process, which underlines healthy versus flawed tissue behaviors. Although several biochemical pathways have been identified, the underlying mechanical basis including the forces…
In development and homeostasis, multi-cellular systems exhibit spatial and temporal heterogeneity in their biochemical and mechanical properties. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how spatiotemporally heterogeneous forces affect the…
Cells in tissues can organize into a broad spectrum of structures according to their function. Drastic changes of organization, such as epithelial-mesenchymal transitions or the formation of spheroidal aggregates, are often associated…
Far from equilibrium, amorphous solids exhibit structural relaxations that span a vast range of timescales such as physical aging and creep. Recently, it has been shown that such relaxations are driven by via intermittent, scale-free, yet…
Using numerical simulations, we study the dynamical evolution of particles interacting via competing long-range repulsion and short-range attraction in two dimensions. The particles are compressed using a time-dependent quasi-one…
Replication through cell division is one of the most fundamental processes of life and a major driver of dynamics in systems ranging from bacterial colonies to embryogenesis, tissues and tumors. While regulation often plays a role in…
Biological tissues transform between solid-like and liquid-like states in many fundamental physiological events. Recent experimental observations further suggest that in two-dimensional epithelial tissues these solid-liquid transformations…
A constitutive relation between stress and strain relative to a reference state is the basic assumption of elasticity theory. However, in living matter, force generation is governed by motor molecule activity, which does not depend on…
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…