We have decided to discontinue the publication of preprints on our preprint server end of 2024. The publication culture within mathematics has changed so much due to the rise of repositories such as ArXiV (www.arxiv.org) that we are encouraging all institute members to make their preprints available there. An institute's repository in its previous form is, therefore, unnecessary. The preprints published to date will remain available here, but we will not add any new preprints here.
The dynamic behavior of cell monolayers in general depends on the interaction of the individual cells with the underlying substrate. Examples are the interaction of individual cells with the hyaline layer during blastula formation, with the basal membrane in intestinal crypts and with the substrate in growing multicellular in-vitro cultures.
In this work we present a novel single-cell based model that allows to study effects of biomechanical cell properties, cell-cell-, and cell-matrix adhesion on the spatial structure and the kinetic behavior of epithelial monolayers.
Our model is based on a colloidal-particle-like approach for each individual cell and includes explicit representations of the dynamic volume control and cell-substrate interactions.