Authors
Muthukrishnan, S., Dewan, P., Tejaswi, T., Sebastian, M. B., Chhabra, T., Mondal, S., Kolya, S., Nandi, S. K., Sarkar, S., Vishwakarma, M.
Abstract
Glassy dynamics in active biological cells remain a subject of debate, as cellular activity rarely slows enough for true glassy features to emerge. In this study, we address this paradox of glassy dynamics in epithelial cells by integrating experimental observations with an active vertex model. We demonstrate that while crowding is essential, but not sufficient for glassy dynamics to emerge. A mechanochemical feedback loop (MCFL), mediated by cell shape changes through the contractile actomyosin network, is also required to drive glass transition in dense epithelial tissues, as revealed via a crosstalk between actin-based cell clustering and dynamic heterogeneity in experiments. Incorporating MCFL into the vertex model reveals that glassy dynamics can emerge even at high cellular activity if the strength of the MCFL remains high. We show that the MCFL can counteract cell division-induced fluidisation and enable glassy dynamics to emerge through active cell-to-cell communication. Furthermore, our analysis reveals the existence of novel collective mechanochemical oscillations that arise from the crosstalk of two MCFLs. Together, we demonstrate that an interplay between crowding and active mechanochemical feedback enables the emergence of glass-like traits and collective biochemical oscillations in epithelial tissues with active cell-cell contacts.
Preprint server:
bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 11 Nov 2025.
Advertisement
Stats
- Recommendations n/a n/a positive of 0 vote(s)
- Views 32
- Comments 0