Rosette formations as symmetry-breaking events: theory and experiment

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Miotto, Mattia, Gosti, Giorgio, Rosito, Maria, Dell'Omo, Michela, Folli, Viola, de Turris, Valeria, Ruocco, Giancarlo, Rosa, Alessandro, Paoluzzi, Matteo
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Miotto, Mattia
Gosti, Giorgio
Rosito, Maria
Dell'Omo, Michela
Folli, Viola
de Turris, Valeria
Ruocco, Giancarlo
Rosa, Alessandro
Paoluzzi, Matteo
author_facet Miotto, Mattia
Gosti, Giorgio
Rosito, Maria
Dell'Omo, Michela
Folli, Viola
de Turris, Valeria
Ruocco, Giancarlo
Rosa, Alessandro
Paoluzzi, Matteo
contents Multicellular rosettes are observed in different situations such as morphogenesis, wound healing, and cancer progression. While some molecular insights have been gained to explain the presence of these assemblies of five or more cells around a common center, what are the tunable, global features that favors/hinders their formation is still largely unknown. Here, we made use of a Voronoi dynamical model to investigate the ingredients driving the emergence of rosettes characterized by different degree of stability and organization. We found that (i) breaking the local spatial symmetry of the system, i.e., introducing curvature-inducing defects, allows for the formation of rosette-like structures (ii) whose probability of formation depends on the characteristic of the cellular layer. In particular, a trade-off between tissue fluidity and single cell deformability dictates the assembly of transient rosettes, that are strongly stabilized in the presence of cell alignment interactions. To test our model predictions, we performed fluorescence microscopy experiments on rosette-forming neural populations derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, finding significant agreement. Overall, our work may set the stage to gain an unifying understanding of the plethora of biophysical mechanisms involving the occurrence of rosette-like structure both in physiology and their altered formation in pathology.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_20543
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Rosette formations as symmetry-breaking events: theory and experiment
Miotto, Mattia
Gosti, Giorgio
Rosito, Maria
Dell'Omo, Michela
Folli, Viola
de Turris, Valeria
Ruocco, Giancarlo
Rosa, Alessandro
Paoluzzi, Matteo
Cell Behavior
Soft Condensed Matter
Statistical Mechanics
Biological Physics
Multicellular rosettes are observed in different situations such as morphogenesis, wound healing, and cancer progression. While some molecular insights have been gained to explain the presence of these assemblies of five or more cells around a common center, what are the tunable, global features that favors/hinders their formation is still largely unknown. Here, we made use of a Voronoi dynamical model to investigate the ingredients driving the emergence of rosettes characterized by different degree of stability and organization. We found that (i) breaking the local spatial symmetry of the system, i.e., introducing curvature-inducing defects, allows for the formation of rosette-like structures (ii) whose probability of formation depends on the characteristic of the cellular layer. In particular, a trade-off between tissue fluidity and single cell deformability dictates the assembly of transient rosettes, that are strongly stabilized in the presence of cell alignment interactions. To test our model predictions, we performed fluorescence microscopy experiments on rosette-forming neural populations derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, finding significant agreement. Overall, our work may set the stage to gain an unifying understanding of the plethora of biophysical mechanisms involving the occurrence of rosette-like structure both in physiology and their altered formation in pathology.
title Rosette formations as symmetry-breaking events: theory and experiment
topic Cell Behavior
Soft Condensed Matter
Statistical Mechanics
Biological Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.20543