Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 30: Tissue

BP 30.3: Talk

Thursday, March 14, 2013, 15:45–16:00, H43

Mechanically driven interface propagation between cellular populations — •maryam aliee¹, Jonas Ranft², Jacques Prost³, Jean-François Joanny², and Frank Jülicher¹ — ¹Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, 01187 Dresden, Germany — ²Institut Curie, 26 rue d'Ulm, 75248 Paris cedex 05, France — ³ESPCI ParisTech, 10 rue Vauquelin, 75231 Paris cedex 05, France

Many biological tissues consist of different cell types. The interface between two cell populations can evolve in time due to the interplay of cell dynamics and tissue mechanics. Here we introduce a continuum description of tissues with two cell types. The balance of cell numbers and the conservation of momentum include source terms, which account for the effects of cell division and apoptosis. We study the case where two cell populations with different homeostatic pressure are separated by an interface. The difference in the homeostatic pressures of two cell types drives the propagation of the interface, corresponding to the invasion of one cell type into the other. The dynamics of the system is described by a generalized version of the Fisher wave equation, which takes into account the coupling between cell number balance and tissue mechanics. We calculate the profile of the moving interface and its velocity as a function of relevant parameters. By linearizing the equations near the unstable front, we can compare our numerical results to analytical solutions. We show that both pulled and pushed front solutions occur, depending on parameter values.