3D mechano-geometric multicellular model of apical stem cell-driven plant morphogenesis

Naoya Kamamoto; Koichi Fujimoto

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arXiv · 2605.13070

3D mechano-geometric multicellular model of apical stem cell-driven plant morphogenesis

Naoya Kamamoto·Koichi Fujimoto

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Abstract

The orientation of cell division is a major determinant of three-dimensional plant morphogenesis. Whether and how a simple division orientation rule explains the establishment of symmetric body plans is a fundamental question. Testing such hypotheses is facilitated by a modeling framework that combines realistic three-dimensional cell mechanics, irreversible cell-wall growth, and a deformable tissue geometry. We recently introduced such a framework, a 3D mechano-geometric multicellular model of apical stem cell-driven morphogenesis. Here we document how the model is built from physiological and computational perspectives. We describe the triangulated thin-shell representation of cells, the treatment of turgor pressure, cell-wall elasticity and strain-driven wall growth, the cell-division algorithm together with its two pluggable division-rule implementations, and the remeshing operations that keep the triangulation well-conditioned as cells grow, divide, and deform. The aim of this paper is to make the present model accessible and customizable to experimental plant biologists.

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Naoya Kamamoto, Koichi Fujimoto. 2026-05-13. 3D mechano-geometric multicellular model of apical stem cell-driven plant morphogenesis. https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.13070

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