Possible roles of mechanical cell elimination intrinsic to growing tissues from the perspective of tissue growth efficiency and homeostasis
Fig 7
Summary of the results obtained with a pure population in the 2nd-4th subsections.
During tissue growth, cell divisions induce surrounding tissue compression, and this results in an increase in the spatial heterogeneity of stress magnitude and cell size. As the cell size variance increases, more cells are eliminated from the tissue. In turn, cell elimination releases the compression due to cell division. From the viewpoint of energy efficiency, this process should be reduced and more newly-born cells should contribute to tissue growth; this can be achieved by higher tissue fluidity, division along the shortest axis, and lower growth rate.