Cell division places tissue flow in step with universal physical laws

What is it about?

Critical states are thought to endow biological systems with important advantages, such as robustness and adaptability. This appears in cell collectives, which self-organize into flows whose swirling boundaries show a universal pattern, looking the same under changes in position, orientation, and magnification. We show for the first time that cell division, not general cell renewal, is what places the tissue right at the edge of this critical state, whose behaviour aligns with what is found in critical percolation. Using two independent drugs to block division, alongside a computer model of dividing cells, we confirm this behaviour breaks down even though the cells keep moving in a coordinated way.

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Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We show that cell division places tissue flow into a critical state that follows critical percolation statistics. This is important to understand how a fundamental process regulates multiscale tissue mechanics and dynamics, regardless of details. Two significant findings are that: a) blocking cell division breaks this critical organization even though the tissue keeps flowing collectively; b) we identify the mechanism behind it: division keeps the cell-cell network mechanically flexible enough to rearrange across scales, and thus sustains criticality.

Perspectives