Cell growth, division and death in cohesive tissues: a thermodynamic approach

Abstract

Cell growth, division and death are defining features of biological tissues that contribute to morphogenesis. In hydrodynamic descriptions of cohesive tissues, their occurrence implies a non-zero rate of variation of cell density. We show how linear nonequilibrium thermodynamics allows to express this rate as a combination of relevant thermodynamic forces: chemical potential, velocity divergence, and activity. We illustrate the resulting effects of the non-conservation of cell density on simple examples inspired by recent experiments on cell monolayers, considering first the velocity of a spreading front, and second an instability leading to mechanical waves.

arXiv comment10 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Generic theory of active polar gels: a paradigm for cytoskeletal dynamics
• Collective and single cell behavior in epithelial contact inhibition
• Propagating stress waves during epithelial expansion
• Border forces and friction control epithelial closure dynamics
• Inference of internal stress in a cell monolayer
• Cell division: a source of active stress in cellular monolayers
• One-dimensional collective migration of a proliferating cell monolayer
• Spatio-temporal dynamics of an active, polar, viscoelastic ring
• Stochastic analysis of the time evolution of Laminar-Turbulent bands of plane Couette flow

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Physical Models of Collective Cell Migration
• Active Fingering Instability in Tissue Spreading
• From cells to tissue: A continuum model of epithelial mechanics
• Role of Substrate Stiffness in Tissue Spreading: Wetting Transition and Tissue Durotaxis
• The role of the cell cycle in collective cell dynamics
• Emergence of epithelial cell density waves
• Motion Ordering in Cellular Polar-polar and Polar-nonpolar Interactions
• Collective cell migration without proliferation: density determines cell velocity and wave velocity