Flocking and giant fluctuations in epithelial active solids.

ABSTRACT: The collective motion of epithelial cells is a fundamental biological process which plays a significant role in embryogenesis, wound healing, and tumor metastasis. While it has been broadly investigated for over a decade both in vivo and in vitro, large-scale coherent flocking phases remain underexplored and have so far been mostly described as fluid. In this work, we report an additional mode of large-scale collective motion for different epithelial cell types in vitro with distinctive features. By tracking individual cells, we show that cells move over long time scales coherently not as a fluid, but as a polar elastic solid with negligible cell rearrangements. Our analysis reveals that this solid flocking phase exhibits signatures of long-range polar order, accompanying with scale-free c

SUBMITTER: Shen Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12037054 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature