Section: Application Domains

Physics of tissue organisation

Many new insights in the last years indicate that migration, growth and division of cells are largely impacted by cell and tissue mechanics ( (Ingber, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci (USA), 2005), (Trepat et. al., Nat. Phys. 2009), (Alessandri et. al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 2013)). Centre-based growth models already account for many of the observed phenomena (e.g. (Drasdo and Hoehme, Phys. Biol. 2005), (Drasdo and Hoehme, New Journal of Physics 2012)). They furthermore allow calculation of the stress tensor in the tissue. Agent-based models resolving cells at higher resolution (Odenthal, Smeets, van Liedekerke, et. al., PloS Comput Biol. 2013) allow to calculate cell deformation as function of stress emerging in the tissue, hence the stress tensor cannot only be resolved at the position of the cell centre, as in the case of centre-based models, but in this case at any point on the cell surface or inside the cell. This allows to relate stress and strain in tissues and the deformation and stress a cell feels at subcellular scale. We extended a deformable cell model towards cell division, which enables us to calculate precise stress - strain relationships for cells, which later can be used to calibrate forces in center-based models. This is fundamental to understand the impact of mechanical stress on cell cycle progression or other cell decisions. Moreover, we established a model to explain the proliferation pattern of cells growing in closed capsules.