A mathematical model to study the dynamics of epithelial cellular networks.

ABSTRACT: Epithelia are sheets of connected cells that are essential across the animal kingdom. Experimental observations suggest that the dynamical behavior of many single-layered epithelial tissues has strong analogies with that of specific mechanical systems, namely large networks consisting of point masses connected through spring-damper elements and undergoing the influence of active and dissipating forces. Based on this analogy, this work develops a modeling framework to enable the study of the mechanical properties and of the dynamic behavior of large epithelial cellular networks. The model is built first by creating a network topology that is extracted from the actual cellular geometry as obtained from experiments, then by associating a mechanical structure and dynamics to the network via sp

SUBMITTER: Abate A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3558995 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Nov-Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature