Interplay between cell height variations and planar pulsations in epithelial monolayers

Abstract

Biological tissues change their shapes through collective interactions of cells. This coordination sets length and time scales for dynamics where precision is essential, in particular during morphogenetic events. However, how these scales emerge remains unclear. Here we address this question using the pulsatile domains observed in confluent epithelial MDCK monolayers where cells exhibit synchronous contraction and extension cycles of ≈ 5 hours duration and ≈ 200 µm length scale. We report that the monolayer thickness changes gradually in space and time by more than two folds in order to counterbalance the contraction and extension of the incompressible cytoplasm. We recapitulate these pulsatile dynamics using a continuum model and show that incorporation of cell stiffness dependent height variations is critical both for generating temporal pulsations and establishing the domain size. We propose that this feedback between height and mechanics could be important in coordinating the length scales of tissue dynamics.

Collective motion of pulsating active particles in confined structures

“…In various biological systems, such as cell membrane [43][44][45], actin [46,47], and epithelium [48][49][50][51], oscillations in area or perimeter have been observed. We focus on the idealized self-pulsating active particle, whose radius σ is dependent on its phase angle θ i [42],…”