title: Modulation of collective cell behaviour by geometrical constraints.
abstract: Intracellular and extracellular mechanical forces play a crucial role during tissue growth, modulating nuclear shape and function and resulting in complex collective cell behaviour. However, the mechanistic understanding of how the orientation, shape, symmetry and homogeneity of cells are affected by environmental geometry is still lacking. Here we investigate cooperative cell behaviour and patterns under geometric constraints created by topographically patterned substrates. We show how cells cooperatively adopt their geometry, shape, positioning of the nucleus and subsequent proliferation activity. Our findings indicate that geometric constraints induce significant squeezing of cells and nuclei, cytoskeleton reorganization, drastic condensation of chromatin resulting in a change in the cell proliferation rate and the anisotropic growth of cultures. Altogether, this work not only demonstrates complex non-trivial collective cellular responses to geometrical constraints but also provides a tentative explanation of the observed cell culture patterns grown on different topographically patterned substrates. These findings provide important fundamental knowledge, which could serve as a basis for better controlled tissue growth and cell-engineering applications.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Clinical & Experimental Medicine (IKEM), Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Mariia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lunova
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, 18221, Czech Republic. lunov@fzu.cz.
authors.forename: Vitalii
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Zablotskii
authors.affiliation: Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Inst NEEL, F-38042 Grenoble, France and CNRS, Inst NEEL, F-38042 Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Nora M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Dempsey
authors.affiliation: Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Inst NEEL, F-38042 Grenoble, France and CNRS, Inst NEEL, F-38042 Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Thibaut
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Devillers
authors.affiliation: Institute for Clinical & Experimental Medicine (IKEM), Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Milan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jirsa
authors.affiliation: Institute of Experimental Medicine AS CR, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Syková
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, 18221, Czech Republic. lunov@fzu.cz and Institute of Experimental Medicine AS CR, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Šárka
authors.initials: Š
authors.lastname: Kubinová
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, 18221, Czech Republic. lunov@fzu.cz.
authors.forename: Oleg
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Lunov
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, 18221, Czech Republic. lunov@fzu.cz.
authors.forename: Alexandr
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dejneka
mesh_terms: D002450:Cell Communication / Q000502:physiology*; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D049109:Cell Proliferation / Q000502:physiology*; D048429:Cell Size; D003198:Computer Simulation; D056945:Hep G2 Cells; D006801:Humans; D040542:Mechanotransduction, Cellular / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological