Universal statistics of epithelial tissue topology

Abdulaziz Abdullah; Demetris Avraam; Oleksandr Chepizhko; Thomas Vaccari; Stefano Zapperi; Caterina A. M. La Porta; Bakhtier Vasiev

arXiv · 1710.08527

Universal statistics of epithelial tissue topology

Abdulaziz Abdullah·Demetris Avraam·Oleksandr Chepizhko·Thomas Vaccari·Stefano Zapperi·Caterina A. M. La Porta·Bakhtier Vasiev

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Abstract

Cells forming various epithelial tissues have a strikingly universal distribution for the number of their edges. It is generally assumed that this topological feature is predefined by the statistics of individual cell divisions in growing tissue but existing theoretical models are unable to predict the observed distribution. Here we show experimentally, as well as in simulations, that the probability of cellular division increases exponentially with the number of edges of the dividing cell and show analytically that this is responsible for the observed shape of cell-edge distribution.

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Abdulaziz Abdullah, Demetris Avraam, Oleksandr Chepizhko, Thomas Vaccari, Stefano Zapperi, Caterina A. M. La Porta, Bakhtier Vasiev. 2017-10-23. Universal statistics of epithelial tissue topology. https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.08527

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