ABSTRACT

Considerable experimental and theoretical research has been dedicated to understanding the connection between the biochemical activity of cells and their mechanical environment. This is exemplified by the common structures of developing epithelial cells between various species and the decay of cell population growth rate over time. We study these two phenomena in a system of simulated cells with identical mechanical properties, and growth factors in both epithelial and 3D configurations embedded in viscous fluid. We demonstrate that the increase in the density of cellular systems and the consequential crowding of cells by their neighbors are crucial factors in causing the decay of tissue growth rate. We also show that tissue structure can be reproduced by a purely mechanical model with a more faithful treatment of inter-membrane interactions. Finally, we also show that, assuming all other factors constant, growth, and final structure depends on inter-membrane and medium friction coefficients. Of these two, the latter has a stronger influence on slowing down growth and disrupting structure.

摘要

大量的实验和理论研究致力于理解细胞的生化活性与其机械环境之间的联系。这可以通过各种物种之间上皮细胞发育的共同结构以及随着时间的推移细胞种群增长率的下降来说明。我们在具有相同机械性能的模拟细胞系统中研究了这两种现象，并且在嵌入粘性流体的上皮和3D构造中都采用了生长因子。我们证明，细胞系统密度的增加以及相邻细胞的拥挤是导致组织生长速率下降的关键因素。我们还显示组织结构可以通过纯机械模型再现，更忠实地处理膜间相互作用。最后，我们还表明，假设所有其他因素不变，增长以及最终结构取决于膜间和中摩擦系数。在这两者中，后者对减缓增长和破坏结构的影响更大。