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A density-independent rigidity transition in biological tissues

Dapeng Bi,Jorge Lopez,J. Schwarz,M. Manning

Published 2014 in Nature Physics

ABSTRACT

Cell migration is important in many biological processes, including embryonic development, cancer metastasis and wound healing. In these tissues, a cell’s motion is often strongly constrained by its neighbours, leading to glassy dynamics. Although self-propelled particle models exhibit a density-driven glass transition, this does not explain liquid-to-solid transitions in confluent tissues, where there are no gaps between cells and therefore the density is constant. Here we demonstrate the existence of a new type of rigidity transition that occurs in the well-studied vertex model for confluent tissue monolayers at constant density. We find that the onset of rigidity is governed by a model parameter that encodes single-cell properties such as cell–cell adhesion and cortical tension, providing an explanation for liquid-to-solid transitions in confluent tissues and making testable predictions about how these transitions differ from those in particulate matter. Cells moving in a tissue undergo a rigidity transition resembling that of active particles jamming at a critical density—but the tissue density stays constant. A new type of rigidity transition implicates the physical properties of the cells.

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