Generic growth instabilities in one-layered tissue sheets

TL;DR

This paper investigates how growth and folding instabilities occur in one-layered tissue sheets using a stochastic model that considers cellular structure and tissue polarity, identifying regimes where folding is triggered by growth dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a combined stochastic and analytical model for tissue growth, revealing growth regimes and conditions leading to tissue folding instabilities.

Findings

Identified exponential and power-law growth regimes.

Folding occurs when bending cannot counteract proliferation effects.

Growth regimes influence tissue stability and folding behavior.

Abstract

Growth and folding in one-layered model tissue sheets are studied in a stochastic, lattice-free single cell model which considers the discrete cellular structure of the tissue, and a coarse grained analytical approach. The polarity of the tissue sheet is considered by a bending term. Cell division gives rise to a locally increasing metric. An exponential and a power-law growth regime are identified. In both regimes folding occurs as soon as the bending contribution becomes too small to compensate the destabilizing effect of the cell proliferation. The potential biological relevance is discussed.