Softness, anomalous dynamics, and fractal-like energy landscape in model cell tissues

Abstract

Epithelial cell tissues have a slow relaxation dynamics resembling that of supercooled liquids. Yet, they also have distinguishing features. These include an extended short-time sub-diffusive transient, as observed in some experiments and recent studies of model systems, and a sub-Arrhenius dependence of the relaxation time on temperature, as reported in numerical studies. Here we demonstrate that the anomalous glassy dynamics of epithelial tissues originates from the emergence of a fractal-like energy landscape, particles becoming virtually free to diffuse in specific phase space directions up to a small distance. Furthermore, we clarify that the stiffness of the cells tunes this anomalous behaviour, tissues of stiff cells having conventional glassy relaxation dynamics.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in Physical Review E

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Theory and simulation for equilibrium glassy dynamics in cellular Potts model of confluent biological tissue
• Alignment interactions drive structural transitions in biological tissues
• A continuous constraint satisfaction problem for the rigidity transition in confluent tissues
• Interplay between jamming and MIPS in persistent self-propelling particles
• Motility driven glassy dynamics in confluent epithelial monolayers
• Unconventional rheological properties in systems of deformable particles
• Scaling the glassy dynamics of active particles: Tunable fragility and reentrance