Dresden 2017 – scientific programme
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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 10: Bioinspired Functional Materials II
CPP 10.5: Talk
Monday, March 20, 2017, 16:00–16:15, ZEU 114
The impact of surface curvature on growing tissues — •Sebastian Ehrig1, Alan West1, Cecile M. Bidan2, Karen Lam1, Philip Kollmannsberger3, Pavel Tomancak4, Peter Fratzl1, and John W.C. Dunlop1 — 1MPIKG, Potsdam, Germany — 2CNRS, Université Grenoble Alpes, France — 3University of Würzburg, Germany — 4MPICBG, Dresden, Germany
Biological tissues continuously undergo shape changes that effect the development and regeneration of tissues and organs. These changes are regulated by cells confined within a complex environment of mechanical and biochemical constraints. Cells not only respond to the geometry of their local environment but also modify it, through the production of extracellular matrix. How these cells are able to form complex tissue structures over large distances, however, is still elusive. Motivated by the observation that tissues grown on substrates of controlled curvature in-vitro are strongly influenced by the local curvature, we have performed tissue culture experiments on surfaces of constant mean curvature and are able to show that the mean curvature has a strong impact on the rate of tissue growth and on the organization of the cellular structures. We can show that on long time scales the tissue surface behaves like a viscous fluid with an equilibrium shape governed by the Laplace-Young-law. Cells on these surfaces display liquid-crystal like behaviour leading to remarkably symmetric stress patterns that closely resemble geodesics. The emergence of such patterns is a result of the intrinsic surface curvature and can partly be explained by minimizing the free energy of the cells director-field.