Predictive model of spatial nematic order in confined cell populations

Abstract Two-dimensional tissues made of spindle-shaped cells have many applications in the fields of tissue engineering and biotechnology. The uniformity of the tissues is critically affected by topological defects, which are singular points of cell alignment. For systematic control and analysis of defect distributions, this paper proposes a numerical method to predict and quantify spatial distributions of defects in two-dimensional domains. In the proposed method, spindle-shaped cells are modeled as nematic liquid crystals, whose alignment and Frank elastic energy are explicitly expressed. The equilibrium distributions of the defects can then be calculated using a Markov chain Monte Carlo method. The proposed method was experimentally verified by culturing mouse myoblast (C2C12) cells on microwells. The order of the defect scattering was almost the same as for the proposed estimation method, indicating that the proposed method can be used for the systematic design of topographical guides for controlling defect distributions.