Cell junctions and spatiotemporal patterns of motion in cell monolayers

The suppression and emergence of collective cell motion play essential roles intissue function,occurring in healthy, diseased, and developing tissues. Cell monolayers are often used as model systems to study this collective motion. Spatiotemporal patterns of motion in epithelial monolayers have been shown to exhibit multicellular swirl-like patterns and oscillating divergent patterns at the large scale, and Fourier analysis has shown the role of short-wavelength single-cell motions like cell division. Like many in animate phases of soft matter, cell monolayers exhibit fluid-like and solid-like properties depending on observation timescales and cell packing density. Building on our previous work, in this presentation we will discuss the collective spatiotemporal patterns of motion in monolayers, focusing on how different classes of cell-cell junctions control transitions between different regimes of collective motion. Our results will connect adherens junctions to cell-cell rearrangements at long timescales, and gap junctions to intercellular fluid-flow at shorter time scales. We will discuss how these different time scales may define multiple regimes of monolayer mechanical response to applied pressure and shear stress.