Fingering instability in spreading epithelial monolayers: roles of cell polarisation, substrate friction and contractile stresses

Cellular Sensing Governs the Stability of Chemotactic Fronts

“…In many cases, flat fronts are unstable, leading to striking dendritic patterns at fluid and solid interfaces as in the case of the well-studied Saffman-Taylor and Mullins-Sekerka instabilities 6,[38][39][40][41][42][43][44] . In active and living matter, front instabilities underlie fingering patterns in active colloidal suspensions 45 , growing tumors 46,47 and bacterial biofilms [48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58] , as well as mechanically-competing tissues 59,60 and spreading epithelial monolayers [61][62][63][64] . Front stability has also been analyzed in cases in which chemotaxis supplements other effects like growth and mechanical interactions 36,48,[65][66][67] .…”