Speaker
Primoz Ziherl
(Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana and Jozef Stefan Institute)
Description
Many mechanical models of tissues are based on the assumption that cells possess an effective surface energy, typically coupled with a hard or a soft volume constraint. In the simplest case, a cell’s surface energy differs from that of a liquid droplet only in the magnitude of tensions assigned to its functionally distinct sides. We present a few examples showing how the resulting preferred shape of individual cells, together with an appropriate global constraint such as the volume of the enclosed lumen, gives rise to nontrivial morphologies of single-cell-thick epithelial tissues. We also discuss the relevance of reduced-dimensionality models for describing such tissues.
Author
Primoz Ziherl
(Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana and Jozef Stefan Institute)