Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

6735

Haosheng Wen

Date

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Physics

Concentration

Computational Physics

Committee Chair

Mohamed Laradji

Committee Member

Chenhui Peng

Committee Member

Thang Hoang

Abstract

Individual units of many biological systems can produce cooperative behaviors through direct interactions between individuals as well as interactions between the surrounding media and individuals. This cooperativity is characterized by amazing collective dynamical and structural behaviors at large scales. In this work, we use molecular dynamics simulations of a ring polymer model, to describe biological cells, to systematically investigate the collective behavior of disjoint semi-flexible cells and their dynamic assembly behavior. We particularly investigate the effect of cell motility, the areal density of the cells, and their interactions with the substrate on their collective behavior. Our results show that the collective behavior of cells strongly depends on an interplay among the driving force of cells, the strength of the circularly patterned substrate, and areal density. A rich phenomenology and dynamics of collective cells motion of cells is revealed from our simulations, including giant traveling bands, unidirectional vortices, and dynamic phase transitions from non-collective to collective behavior as a function of cells motility and areal density.Our study provides novel non-trivial insight intobiological processes associated with cell motility, stiffness of the substrate, and cell areal density.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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