Morphology of Proliferating Epithelial Cellular Tissue

TL;DR

This paper introduces a numerical simulation model to study the morphology of proliferating epithelial tissue, revealing how different cell properties influence tissue structure and tumor development.

Contribution

The study presents a novel simulation model that captures tissue morphologies and tumor growth dynamics based on cell stiffness, growth potential, and mechanical interactions.

Findings

Soft cells form tissue matrix and dendrite-like networks.

Soft cell inclusion can lead to tumor-like structures.

Higher inter-cell friction slows tumor growth and induces cell death.

Abstract

We investigate morphologies of proliferating cellular tissue using a newly developed numerical simulation model for mechanical cell division. The model reproduces structures of simple multi-cellular organisms via simple rules for selective division and division plane orientation. The model is applied to a bimodal mixture of stiff cells with a low growth potential and soft cells with a high growth potential. In an even mixture, the soft cells develop into a tissue matrix and the stiff cells into a dendrite-like network structure. For soft cell inclusion in a stiff cellular matrix, the soft cells develop to a fast growing tumour like structure that gradually evacuates the stiff cell matrix. With increasing inter-cell friction, the tumour growth slows down and parts of it is driven to self-inflicted cell death.