Mechanical feedback controls the emergence of dynamical memory in growing tissue monolayers

Abstract

The growth of a tissue, which depends on cell-cell interactions and biologically relevant process such as cell division and apoptosis, is regulated by a mechanical feedback mechanism. We account for these effects in a minimal two-dimensional model in order to investigate the consequences of mechanical feedback, which is controlled by a critical pressure, pc. A cell can only grow and divide if the pressure it experiences, due to interaction with its neighbors, is less than pc. Because temperature is an irrelevant variable in the model, the cell dynamics is driven by self-generated active forces (SGAFs) that are created by cell division. It is shown that even in the absence of intercellular interactions, cells undergo diffusive behavior. The SGAF-driven diffusion is indistinguishable from the well-known dynamics of a free Brownian particle at a fixed finite temperature. When intercellular interactions are taken into account, we find persistent temporal correlations in the force-force autocorrelation function (FAF) that extends over timescale of several cell division times. The time-dependence of the FAF reveals memory effects, which increases as pc increases. The observed non-Markovian effects emerge due to the interplay of cell division and mechanical feedback, and is inherently a non-equilibrium phenomenon.