Self-assembly of tessellated tissue sheets by growth and collision

Abstract

Tissues do not exist in isolation; they interact with other tissues within and across organs. While cell-cell interactions have been intensely investigated, less is known about tissue-tissue interactions. Here, we studied collisions between monolayer tissues with different geometries, cell densities, and cell types. First, we determine rules for tissue shape changes during binary collisions and describe complex cell migration at tri-tissue boundaries. Next, we demonstrate that genetically identical tissues displace each other based solely on cell density gradients, and present a physical model of tissue interactions that allows us to estimate the bulk modulus of the tissues from collision dynamics. Finally, we introduce TissEllate, a design tool for self-assembling complex tessellations from arrays of many tissues, and we use cell sheet engineering techniques to transfer these composite tissues like cellular films. Overall, our work provides insight into the mechanics of tissue collisions, harnessing them to engineer tissue composites as designable living materials.

Short-term bioelectric stimulation of collective cell migration in tissues reprograms long-term supracellular dynamics

“…To put this in context, these epithelial cells lost ∼80% of their previous speed within 20 minutes (losing ∼1 μm/min), yet maintained an imperative and ‘memory’ to continue migrating ‘rightward’ for many hours (until φ relaxed closer to 0). To add further biophysical context, and motivated by the role cell density plays in modulating collective cell migration and tissue mechanics ( 29 , 58 , 59 ), we repeated these relaxation studies in the tissue bulk at 2 additional densities, the lower bound being the minimum density that maintained confluence, ∼2,000 cells/mm 2 (Fig. 3C – E , orange), and the upper bound, ∼4,500 cells/mm 2 (Fig.…”

Formation of Pixelated Elastic Films via Capillary Suction of Curable Elastomers in Templated Hele–Shaw Cells

“…Nonetheless, we note that our approach can be generalized to a variety of fluids, that is other types of melts such as elastomers doped with metallic particles [ 36 ] and liquid crystals, [ 37 ] wax, [ 14 ] cellulose‐based materials, [ 38 ] hydrogels, [ 39 ] liquid metals, [ 40 ] molten glass and metals, [ 35 ] and other types of radially expanding processes such as imbibition through a porous media such as paper, [ 41 ] diffusion (see Movie , Supporting Information), or even tissue growth. [ 42 ]…”

Discovering dynamic laws from observations: the case of self-propelled, interacting colloids

“…There are many natural systems composed of self-propeling (active) elements which interact and generate complex collective phenomena [1][2][3]. Mathematical models of active particles are used to predict the behavior of a plethora of different systems, such as synthetic self-propelled particles [4][5][6][7][8], flocks of birds [9], schools of fish [10], groups of living cells [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] or even the collective behavior of human crowds [18]. These inherently outof-equilibrium systems are characterized by the activity of their individual elements and their inter-particle interactions.…”