Mechanics of epithelial tissues with cell size heterogeneity
Croatian Science Foundation · Research Project IP-2026
How does variation in cell size reshape a living material?
Epithelial tissues must remain mechanically coherent while their cells grow, divide, change shape, and rearrange. This project treats cell-size heterogeneity as a physical control parameter and asks how it changes tissue order, stability, and flow.
Project overview
Most models of epithelial mechanics assume that cells are approximately equal in size. Real tissues are different: variability is continually produced by cell growth, division, delamination, and responses to local biochemical and mechanical cues. In other soft materials, comparable size variation can change crystallisation, melting, phase separation, glass formation, and mechanical stability. Its role in living tissues remains much less understood.
The project will develop a quantitative theory of epithelial tissues with heterogeneous cell sizes. Using vertex models, statistical-physics methods, and numerical simulations, we will connect cell-level variability to tissue-scale organisation and mechanical function.
Research team
This work was supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project number IP-2026-1511.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Croatian Science Foundation.
For project enquiries, contact Marko Popović.