Alignment interactions drive structural transitions in biological tissues

Phys Rev E. 2021 Oct;104(4-1):044606. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.104.044606.

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.

MeSH terms

  • Cell Shape
  • Mass Gatherings*
  • Models, Biological*
  • Phase Transition