Vascular networks due to dynamically arrested crystalline ordering of elongated cells

TL;DR

This paper presents a computational model demonstrating how elongated cells can form vascular-like networks through dynamic arrest in crystalline order, offering a new explanation for cellular pattern formation in tissues.

Contribution

It introduces a novel computational model showing that cellular networks can form without chemotactic or mechanical interactions, highlighting the role of crystalline ordering in tissue patterning.

Findings

Cells can form stable network patterns through dynamic arrest.

Crystalline ordering explains vascular network formation.

Pattern formation occurs independently of chemotaxis or traction.

Abstract

Recent experimental and theoretical studies suggest that crystallization and glass-like solidification are useful analogies for understanding cell ordering in confluent biological tissues. It remains unexplored how cellular ordering contributes to pattern formation during morphogenesis. With a computational model we show that a system of elongated, cohering biological cells can get dynamically arrested in a network pattern. Our model provides a new explanation for the formation of cellular networks in culture systems that exclude intercellular interaction via chemotaxis or mechanical traction.