Experimental evidence shows that there is a feedback between cell shape and cell motion. How this feedback impacts the collective behavior of dense cell monolayers remains an open question. We investigate the effect of a feedback that tends to align the cell crawling direction with cell elongation in a biological tissue model. We find that the alignment interaction promotes nematic patterns in the fluid phase that eventually undergo a nonequilibrium phase transition into a quasihexagonal solid. Meanwhile, highly asymmetric cells do not undergo the liquid-to-solid transition for any value of the alignment coupling. In this regime, the dynamics of cell centers and shape fluctuation show features typical of glassy systems.
Alignment interactions drive structural transitions in biological tissues / Paoluzzi, Matteo; Angelani, Luca; Gosti, Giorgio; Marchetti, M. Cristina; Pagonabarraga, Ignacio; Ruocco, Giancarlo. - In: PHYSICAL REVIEW. E. - ISSN 2470-0045. - 104:4(2021). [10.1103/physreve.104.044606]
Alignment interactions drive structural transitions in biological tissues
Paoluzzi, Matteo
Primo
;Angelani, Luca;Gosti, Giorgio;Pagonabarraga, Ignacio;Ruocco, Giancarlo
2021
Abstract
Experimental evidence shows that there is a feedback between cell shape and cell motion. How this feedback impacts the collective behavior of dense cell monolayers remains an open question. We investigate the effect of a feedback that tends to align the cell crawling direction with cell elongation in a biological tissue model. We find that the alignment interaction promotes nematic patterns in the fluid phase that eventually undergo a nonequilibrium phase transition into a quasihexagonal solid. Meanwhile, highly asymmetric cells do not undergo the liquid-to-solid transition for any value of the alignment coupling. In this regime, the dynamics of cell centers and shape fluctuation show features typical of glassy systems.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.