Speaker
Description
Epithelial tissues are densely packed, confluent systems whose organization and mechanics are commonly described mathematically using vertex models. While these approaches successfully capture membrane dynamics and cell–cell junction remodeling, they inherently lack the ability to explicitly account for intercellular attraction and/or repulsion forces. As a result, key aspects of tissue organization driven by such interactions remain insufficiently explored. In this work, we introduce a novel individual-based model in which cells are represented as radius-dependent spheres. This framework explicitly incorporates both attractive and repulsive interactions between cells, enabling a more direct description of mechanical cell coupling within the tissue. A central feature of our model is the ability of cell size to dynamically evolve, allowing the system to adapt to the balance of forces and reach mechanically consistent configurations. We analyze the stationary states of this system and characterize the resulting tissue organization across parameters regimes. Finally, we validate our approach by comparing model predictions with experimental data from retinal pigment epithelium.
