Effective strains enable rapid wound closure in jellyfish after injury

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that simple pre-strains in jellyfish tissue mechanics can rapidly initiate wound closure, highlighting the importance of tissue mechanics over restructuring or proliferation.

Contribution

It introduces an in silico spring lattice model to show how radial contractile strains can trigger wound closure in jellyfish, aligning with experimental observations.

Findings

Radial contractile strains can initiate wound closure across various conditions.

Large wound sizes can be closed rapidly due to tissue pre-strains.

An analytical expression predicts closure extent based on residual tissue angle.

Abstract

The jellyfish Clytia hemisphaerica possesses astounding regenerative capacities and is able to close even large wounds within a few hours. This rapid pace of wound closure raises the question whether tissue mechanics, rather than tissue restructuring or cell proliferation, might be underlying the process. We tested this possibility by asking if simple pre-strains within the jellyfish umbrella would be capable of initiating wound closure in a jellyfish body geometry. To this end, we employed an in silico spring lattice model, a coarse-grained model of elastic materials which has previously been established to study tissue mechanics problems. We found that, using radially contractile (but not radially extensile) strains, wound closure can indeed be initiated across a wide range of conditions. This is even true for large cut sizes and, hence, small pieces of remaining tissue material, in good agreement with the experimental findings. Finally, we derived an analytical expression for the expected amount of achievable closure as a function of the residual material angle. These results establish important foundations for further investigations of the biophysics underpinning jellyfish regeneration.