This issue gathers exciting multi-disciplinary work relating viscoelasticity and collective cell remodeling within various biological processes such as morphogenesis, tumorigenesis, and wound healing. Viscoelasticity is influenced by energy transfer and dissipation during cell rearrangement at various time and space scales. Cumulative structural changes at a subcellular level have effects on viscoelasticity at a supracellular level. Established configurations of migrating cells and the rate of their change, which significantly regulate viscoelasticity at a supracellular level, have the impact on the cohesiveness inhomogeneity and various mechanical and biochemical processes at a subcellular level. This Research Topic aims to connect the macroscopic viscoelastic parameters with the individual and collective cell response. Consideration of biochemical, biophysical and bio-mechanical aspects responsible for tissue remodeling, intercalation, and migration were discussed on various multicellular systems under in vivo and in vitro conditions.
Thus in this Research Topic we aim to provide a state-of-the-art view about the current knowledge related to viscoelasticity caused by collective cell remodeling and adhesive contractile properties, covering a plethora of phenomena such as: 1) single cell response under stretched monolayers modeled with an improved Vertex model, 2) adhesion percolation within a tissue as an important factor which influences its viscoelasticity, 3) the active turbulence caused by collective cell migration accompanied with the generation of mechanical waves, 4) cell jamming state transitions, and 5) viscoelastic response characterization in liver diseases. Alternative techniques to measure and control cell rearrangement under various experimental conditions are also considered, including atomic force microscopy measurements and various elastography techniques.
This Research Topic provides an overview of the current understanding of various: biological, biochemical, biophysical and mechanical aspects of cell remodeling. The inter-relation between cell remodeling and tissue viscoelasticity was discussed by emphasizing the relevant rheological parameters, the way of their measurement under in vivo/in vitro conditions, and the strategy of multi-scale constitutive modeling.
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Author contributions
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Summary
Keywords
viscoelasticity of multicellular systems, collective cell rearrangement, multi scale mathematical modeling, elastography, cell jamming state transition, active elastic turbulence
Citation
Pajic-Lijakovic ID, Guevorkian K, Barriga EH and Muñoz JJ (2021) Editorial: Viscoelasticity: From Individual Cell Behavior to Collective Tissue Remodeling. Front. Phys. 9:773096. doi: 10.3389/fphy.2021.773096
Received
09 September 2021
Accepted
15 September 2021
Published
29 September 2021
Volume
9 - 2021
Edited and reviewed by
Ralf Metzler, University of Potsdam, Germany
Updates
Copyright
© 2021 Pajic-Lijakovic, Guevorkian, Barriga and Muñoz.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Ivana D. Pajic-Lijakovic, iva@tmf.bg.ac.rs
This article was submitted to Biophysics, a section of the journal Frontiers in Physics
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.