PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Monfared, Siavash
AU  - Ravichandran, Guruswami
AU  - Andrade, José E.
AU  - Doostmohammadi, Amin
TI  - Mechanics of Live Cell Elimination
AID  - 10.1101/2021.08.17.456649
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.08.17.456649
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/08/18/2021.08.17.456649.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/08/18/2021.08.17.456649.full
AB  - Cell layers eliminate unwanted cells through the extrusion process, which underlines healthy versus flawed tissue behaviors. Although several biochemical pathways have been identified, the underlying mechanical basis including the forces involved in cellular extrusion remain largely unexplored. Utilizing a phase-field model of a three-dimensional cell layer, we study the interplay of cell extrusion with cell-cell and cell-substrate interactions, in a monolayer. Independent tuning of cell-cell versus cell-substrate adhesion forces in the model reveals that a higher cell-substrate adhesion leads to a lower number of total extrusion events. We find extrusion events to be linked to both half-integer topological defects in the orientation field of the cells and to five-fold disclinations in cellular arrangements. We also show that increasing the relative cell-cell adhesion forces translates into a higher likelihood for an extrusion event to be associated with a five-fold disclination and a weaker correlation with +1/2 topological defects. We unify our findings by accessing mechanical stress fields: an extrusion event acts as a mechanism to relieve localized stress concentration.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.