Cell proliferation and migration are tightly regulated by mechanical cues, particularly crowding through contact inhibition. A central control point is the G1/S restriction point (R-point), an irreversible checkpoint in late G1 where mammalian cells integrate environmental signals, such as cell density, with intrinsic regulatory cues to commit to DNA replication and division. We introduce a...
The rate at which biological tissues grow is regulated by the interplay between geometry, cell mechanics, and cellular processes. In scenarios where tissue growth occurs primarily at the surface of a confined environment -- such as bone remodelling, wound healing, and tissue growth within engineered scaffolds -- cells compete for space as they deposit new material. This competition leads to...
Curvature-dependent epithelial migration is usually described at the level of actin and adhesion, but recent experiments reveal a central role for organelle mechanics. We combine new experimental evidence on wound-edge geometry with a unified variational model of single-cell migration to argue that the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) acts as a mechanotransducer linking curvature, cytoskeletal...
The 2D vertex model is successful in capturing many phenomena observed in epithelia but does not consider out-of-plane mechanical effects. To understand how 3D effects can be captured in 2D, we introduce a model for a monolayer of columnar cells where the energy includes terms relating to volume, surface area, lateral adhesion and cortical tension. When reduced to a 2D formulation, bulk...
Understanding collective cell dynamics is fundamental to the study of key problems in cell biology, such as tumour growth, biofilm expansion, and wound healing. A key aspect of collective cell dynamics that is often underappreciated is the role of cellular mechanics. Cellular mechanics plays a role in dynamics at all scales, from subcellular cytoskeletal forces acting over seconds to drive...
