An interplay of migratory and division forces as a generic mechanism for stem cell patterns

Abstract

In many adult tissues, stem cells and differentiated cells are not homogeneously distributed : stem cells are arranged in periodic "niches", and differentiated cells are constantly produced and migrate out of these niches. In this article, we provide a general theoretical framework to study mixtures of dividing and actively migrating particles, which we apply to biological tissues. We show in particular that the interplay between the stresses arising from active cell migration and stem cell division give rise to robust stem cell patterns. The instability of the tissue leads to spatial patterns which are either steady or oscillating in time. The wavelength of the instability has an order of magnitude consistent with the biological observations. We also discuss the implications of these results for future in vitro and in vivo experiments.

References in corpus (2)

• Instabilities of monolayered epithelia: shape and structure of villi and crypts
• Instabilities and waves in thin films of living fluids

Cited by in corpus (4)

• A Second Order Fully-discrete Linear Energy Stable Scheme for a Binary Compressible Viscous Fluid Model
• Interplay between epidermal stem cell dynamics and dermal deformations
• Regulation of stem cell dynamics through volume exclusion
• Thickness of epithelia on wavy substrates: measurements and continuous models