Healthy growing organs and deadly cancers are separated by nothing more than the physical stickiness of their cells.
Growing tissues must balance how fast cells multiply with how strongly they adhere to their neighbors. A new mathematical model shows that when this balance shifts, a cohesive organ can suddenly fragment into chaotic, finger-like patterns. These patterns are the hallmark of invasive cancer, yet they are driven by simple mechanical forces rather than complex genetic mutations. This suggests that stickiness is the primary gatekeeper of biological structure. Controlling the adhesion levels of cells could provide a physical way to stop tumors from invading healthy tissue.
Theory of adhesion-driven self-organisation in growing tissues
arXiv · 2604.26928
Cell invasion and spatial pattern formation are two distinct manifestations of cellular self-organisation in development, regeneration, and disease. Here, we develop and analyse a unified theoretical framework that links these two seemingly different behaviours within a single mechanistic model for adhesion-mediated self-organisation in growing cell populations. Using a multiscale analysis, we show that the balance between cell-cell adhesion, self-diffusion, and proliferation controls the emerge