Mechanical control of growth: ideas, facts and challenges.

ABSTRACT: In his classic book On Growth and Form, D'Arcy Thompson discussed the necessity of a physical and mathematical approach to understanding the relationship between growth and form. The past century has seen extraordinary advances in our understanding of biological components and processes contributing to organismal morphogenesis, but the mathematical and physical principles involved have not received comparable attention. The most obvious entry of physics into morphogenesis is via tissue mechanics. In this Review, we discuss the fundamental role of mechanical interactions between cells induced by growth in shaping a tissue. Non-uniform growth can lead to accumulation of mechanical stress, which in the context of two-dimensional sheets of tissue can specify the shape it assumes in thre

SUBMITTER: Irvine KD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5769630 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature