Towards a two-scale model for morphogenesis -- How cellular processes influence tissue deformations

TL;DR

This paper introduces a two-scale model that links cellular behaviors to tissue-level deformations, enhancing understanding of morphogenesis by simulating cell interactions and surface mechanics.

Contribution

It presents a novel multiphase-field model coupling cellular motility and deformability with tissue surface elasticity, advancing quantitative morphogenetic modeling.

Findings

Model captures the influence of cellular topology on tissue bending.

Numerical scheme scales efficiently with cell number.

Simulation results demonstrate the impact of cellular interactions on tissue shape.

Abstract

We propose a two-scale model to resolve essential features of developmental tissue deformations. The model couples individual cellular behavior to the mechanics at tissue scale. This is realized by a multiphase-field model addressing the motility, deformability and interaction of cells on an evolving surface. The surface evolution is due to bending elasticity, with bending properties influenced by the topology of the cellular network, which forms the surface. We discuss and motivate model assumptions, propose a numerical scheme, which essentially scales with the number of cells, and explore computationally the effect of the two-scale coupling on the global shape evolution. The approach provides a step towards more quantitative modeling of morphogenetic processes.