Optimal mechanical interactions direct multicellular network formation on elastic substrates.

ABSTRACT: Cells self-organize into functional, ordered structures during tissue morphogenesis, a process that is evocative of colloidal self-assembly into engineered soft materials. Understanding how intercellular mechanical interactions may drive the formation of ordered and functional multicellular structures is important in developmental biology and tissue engineering. Here, by combining an agent-based model for contractile cells on elastic substrates with endothelial cell culture experiments, we show that substrate deformation-mediated mechanical interactions between cells can cluster and align them into branched networks. Motivated by the structure and function of vasculogenic networks, we predict how measures of network connectivity like percolation probability and fractal dimension as well as

SUBMITTER: Noerr PS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10636364 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature