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Title: Free volume theory explains the unusual behavior of viscosity in a non-confluent tissue during morphogenesis
A recent experiment on zebrafish blastoderm morphogenesis showed that the viscosity (η) of a non-confluent embryonic tissue grows sharply until a critical cell packing fraction (ϕS). The increase inηup toϕSis similar to the behavior observed in several glass-forming materials, which suggests that the cell dynamics is sluggish or glass-like. Surprisingly,ηis a constant aboveϕS. To determine the mechanism of this unusual dependence ofηonϕ, we performed extensive simulations using an agent-based model of a dense non-confluent two-dimensional tissue. We show that polydispersity in the cell size, and the propensity of the cells to deform, results in the saturation of the available free area per cell beyond a critical packing fraction. Saturation in the free space not only explains the viscosity plateau aboveϕSbut also provides a relationship between equilibrium geometrical packing to the dramatic increase in the relaxation dynamics.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2310639
PAR ID:
10510205
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
eLife
Date Published:
Journal Name:
eLife
Volume:
12
ISSN:
2050-084X
Page Range / eLocation ID:
RP87966
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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