• Physics 15, s124
When epithelial tissue cells transfer on curved surfaces, they show completely different patterns from these they kind on flat surfaces—in accordance with a brand new concept.
Epithelial tissue covers all our organs, from the pores and skin to the intestines. To kind and renew this tissue, cells should circulate over surfaces. This course of has been studied in managed lab experiments that, for sensible causes, are carried out on flat surfaces. However organic environments such because the intestine are extremely curved. To check the impression of curvature on tissue dynamics, Samuel Bell of the Curie Institute in Paris and colleagues developed a hydrodynamic concept that works for bumpy surfaces and reveals that tissue motion in a corrugation considerably differs from that alongside a flat floor [1]. The outcomes may have implications for fashions of organ morphogenesis and most cancers unfold.
The workforce modeled their epithelial tissue as an “lively nematic” system—a fabric product of elongated models that consistently devour power. This mannequin beforehand proved profitable in describing tissue dynamics over a flat floor. The workforce expanded it by including in a pressure subject that accounts for the impression of curvature on how cells align with one another as they transfer.
Analyzing completely different corrugation geometries, Bell and colleagues decided a part diagram for the system, discovering that it incorporates tissue-flow patterns not doable for flat geometries. These patterns embrace an association often called double shear circulate—the place the cells on the heart and the perimeters of a corrugation strip transfer in reverse instructions—and one which resembles chains of vortices.
The workforce is at the moment working with experimentalists to check their theoretical predictions. In addition they plan so as to add noise and cell “turnover” to the mannequin to make it extra lifelike. Within the intestine, as an illustration, cells are repeatedly added to and extruded from the epithelium, so “we need to hyperlink this turnover to curvature,” Bell says.
–Matteo Rini
Matteo Rini is the Editor of Physics Journal.
References
- Samuel Bell et al., “Lively nematic flows over curved surfaces,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 118001 (2022).
