LMP Seminar: Emerging cellular dynamics from turbulent flows steered by active filaments

Describing the mechanics of cell collectives and tissues within the framework of active matter, without resorting to the details of biology is an exciting area of current research. We develop a continuum theory to describe the dynamics of cellular collectives, discerning the cellular force-generating active filaments from cells’ shape. The theory shows that active flows and straining part of the active turbulence can elongate isotropic cells, which form nematic domains of the size of the active length scale. This is important as cell morphology is not only an indicator of diseases but it can affect the nucleus morphology, gene expression and other biochemical processes inside the cells. Our theory highlights the importance of distinguishing the roles of active filaments from cell shape and explains outstanding experimental observations such as the origin of cell-filament alignment patches. Further, we reconcile how the contractile forces generated by the cytoskeletal network makes the cells to exhibit flow behaviours similar to that of extensile active systems. Revealing the crucial role of activity and rheology to describe the dynamics of cellular layers, our study is in consonance with a number of experimental observations.