Interplay of migratory and division forces as a generic mechanism for stem cell patterns

Abstract

In many adult tissues, stem cells and differentiated cells are not homogeneously distributed: stem cells are arranged in periodic "niches," and differentiated cells are constantly produced and migrate out of these niches. In this article, we provide a general theoretical framework to study mixtures of dividing and actively migrating particles, which we apply to biological tissues. We show in particular that the interplay between the stresses arising from active cell migration and stem cell division give rise to robust stem cell patterns. The instability of the tissue leads to spatial patterns which are either steady or oscillating in time. The wavelength of the instability has an order of magnitude consistent with the biological observations. We also discuss the implications of these results for future in vitro and in vivo experiments.

Interplay between epidermal stem cell dynamics and dermal deformation

“…The bending energy is also considered in each network link: Link (i, j) uniquely determines a pair of two adjacent triangular regions, whose unit normals N (1) ij and N (2) ij in the case of Fig. 3(a Here the sign of the normals is chosen so that they have positive zcomponents at the initial membrane configuration.…”

Mechanical compartmentalization of the intestinal organoid enables crypt folding and collective cell migration

“…Previous work also reported that compression triggers extrusion 41,42 , whereas here we found frequent extrusion in areas of high tension. Our work provides a new experimental basis to reformulate current models of how cellular forces influence epithelial self-renewal and homeostasis 31,43 .…”

Field induced cell proliferation and death in a model epithelium

“…The constraint of incompressibility (20) is imposed by using the fluid pressure P f as a Lagrange multiplier. In a similar way, the constraint of current conservation (19) is imposed by using the electric potential U as the Lagrange multiplier, where…”

“…To better understand the mechanical properties of tissues, different theoretical approaches have been developed ranging from individual cell based models [8,[12][13][14] to hydrodynamic continuum descriptions [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Coarse grained hydrodynamic models can be used to understand the multicellular dynamics of tissues at long wavelengths.…”