Vendredi 13 février 2026 à 11h00, salle 259, IUSTI
Abstract: Biological tissues rheology influences wound healing or morphogenesis [1]. Tissues are described as viscoelastic fluids [2], but their behavior can be more complex, because of biological activity [3] and/or from tissue permeability [4]. We recently developed a microfluidic device to study in depth the rheology of model tissues by realizing micropipette aspiration of several spheroids (3D cell aggregates) [5]. In particular, the high frequency response (forced sinusoidal regime with period <1 min) deviates from the predicted viscoelastic behavior. We hypothesize that poroelasticity also needs to been taken in account to properly describe the tissue response. This is confirmed by permeability measurements in steady state, as well as by finite element simulation, but non-linear effects should also be taken into account to describe quantitatively the response. We are currently extending the approach to more complex tissues.
[1] N. I. Petridou and C.-P. Heisenberg, Tissue rheology in embryonic organization, EMBO J. 38, e102497 (2019).
[2] K. Guevorkian, F. Brochard-Wyart, and D. Gonzalez-Rodriguez, Chapter Eight – Flow Dynamics of 3D Multicellular Systems into Capillaries, in Viscoelasticity and Collective Cell Migration, edited by I. Pajic-Lijakovic and E. H. Barriga (Academic Press, 2021), pp. 193–223.
[3] D. Gonzalez-Rodriguez, K. Guevorkian, S. Douezan, and F. Brochard-Wyart, Soft Matter Models of Developing Tissues and Tumors, Science 338, 910 (2012).
[4] F. Liu, B. Gao, L. Lei, S. Liu, H. Li, and M. Guo, Intercellular flow dominates the poroelasticity of multicellular tissues, Nat. Phys. (2025).
[5] S. Landiech et al., Parallel on-chip micropipettes enabling quantitative multiplexed characterization of vesicle mechanics and cell aggregates rheology, APL Bioeng. 8, 026122 (2024).
Pierre Joseph – LAAS, Montpellier