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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.14707 |
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Table of Contents:
- We perform cell segmentation on images from experimental studies of confluent, mobile cells in epithelial monolayers and show that these systems possess a broad, positively-skewed shape parameter distribution $P(\mathcal{A})$, where $\mathcal{A}=p^2/4πa$, $p$ is the perimeter, and $a$ is area of each cell. $P(\mathcal{A})$ is peaked at a value higher than the typical shape parameter $\mathcal{A}^* \sim 1.15$ that occurs for randomly packed, static confluent cell monolayers. The distribution does not arise from a heterogeneous population of cells with different fixed $\mathcal{A}$, nor can it arise from cell shape fluctuations from strains below the elastic limit. Instead, we find that all cells in each monolayer sample $\mathcal{A}$ values that span the full shape parameter distribution. We develop a deformable particle model that allows cell perimeter to adapt to local forces during cell motion, and this model recovers $P(\mathcal{A})$ to within $5\%$ for both MDCK and HaCaT epithelial cell monolayers. These results emphasize that confluent epithelial monolayers of mobile cells generate a well-defined broad shape parameter distribution that is independent of the initial cell shapes.