Cell deformability drives fluid-to-fluid phase transition in active cell monolayers.

Area of Science:

• Biophysics
• Computational Biology
• Cell Mechanics

Background:

• Cell deformability is critical for tissue mechanics, homeostasis, and development.
• Previous large-scale simulations were limited to polygonal cells, hindering the study of arbitrarily deformable cell populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present an efficient computational method for simulating large populations of nonpolygonal deformable cells.
• To investigate the emergent behaviors of dense, active cell populations.

Main Methods:

• Developed a novel, computationally efficient approach for simulating nonpolygonal deformable cells.
• Simulated densely packed active cell populations with excluded volume interactions.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated a fluid-to-fluid phase transition in simulated cell populations.
• Proposed an experimentally measurable index of topological defects to characterize the transition.

Conclusions:

• The new simulation method offers flexibility for studying tissue-scale cell populations.
• The findings provide new insights into biological fluid phases and cell population dynamics.