Within cells, the cytoskeleton organizes into polymer networks with unique properties.
At short time-scales, they behave elastically. However, due to molecular turnover, at
longer time-scales they behave like viscous fluids in low Reynold limit. In addition to
this, they are capable of actively developing tension, thanks to molecular motors using
chemical energy . At the tissue scale, epithelial cell formed by monolayers can exhibit,
in some regimes, a similar active fluid behavior. Contractile forces plays a key role in
tissue, for example, in organ development, wound healing, remodeling of the newly synthesized
connective tissue, and in sub-cellular level like cell elongation, contraction, rearrangements,
cell adhesion, division, cell migration and furrow construction in cytokinesis.
Furthermore, as a part of optogenetic technnique, the doped epithelial tissues experience
contractility upon illumination. Motivated by this, in the present work we considered
a monolayer of cells with illumination as an external power input defined as an tension
pattern in space and time to engineer contractility patterns to transport material from
one part of the tissue to another or to engineer morphogensis. Altogether, for the system
at low Reynold’s limit, governing equations of this compressible active visco-elastic model
are developed using traditional continuum approach and Onsager’s variational principle
and solved using linear finite elements. The system is non-dimensionalized and the effect
of each independent parameter on the system is analyzed. Finally, this model helps
in examining the principles that govern the ability to remodel the material by applying
space-time patterns of activity.
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