Fluidization of tissues by cell division and apoptosis

During the formation of tissues, cells organize collectively by cell division and apoptosis. The multicellular dynamics of such systems is influenced by mechanical conditions and can give rise to cell rearrangements and movements. We develop a continuum description of tissue dynamics, which describe...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 107; no. 49; pp. 20863 - 20868
Main Authors Ranft, Jonas, Basan, Markus, Elgeti, Jens, Joanny, Jean-François, Prost, Jacques, Jülicher, Frank, Lubensky, Tom C.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 07.12.2010
National Acad Sciences
Subjects
Anisotropy
Apoptosis
Biological Sciences
Body Fluids
Cell death
Cell Division
Cell growth
Cells
Computer Simulation
Diffusion
Elastic tissue
Homeostasis
Mechanical stress
Models, Biological
Physical Sciences
Physics
Rheology
Stress relaxation
Stress tensors
Stress, Mechanical
Tissues
Viscosity
growth processes
active fluids
fluctuations
source stress
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Summary:During the formation of tissues, cells organize collectively by cell division and apoptosis. The multicellular dynamics of such systems is influenced by mechanical conditions and can give rise to cell rearrangements and movements. We develop a continuum description of tissue dynamics, which describes the stress distribution and the cell flow field on large scales. In the absence of division and apoptosis, we consider the tissue to behave as an elastic solid. Cell division and apoptosis introduce stress sources that, in general, are anisotropic. By combining cell number balance with dynamic equations for the stress source, we show that the tissue effectively behaves as a viscoelastic fluid with a relaxation time set by the rates of division and apoptosis. If the system is confined in a fixed volume, it reaches a homeostatic state in which division and apoptosis balance. In this state, cells undergo a diffusive random motion driven by the stochasticity of division and apoptosis. We calculate the expression for the effective diffusion coefficient as a function of the tissue parameters and compare our results concerning both diffusion and viscosity to simulations of multicellular systems using dissipative particle dynamics.
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PMCID: PMC3000289
Author contributions: J.R., M.B., J.E., J.-F.J., J.P., and F.J. performed research; and J.R., M.B., J.E., J.-F.J., J.P., and F.J. wrote the paper.
Edited by Tom C. Lubensky, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, and approved October 7, 2010 (received for review July 27, 2010)
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1011086107