Guidance of cellular nematic elastomers into shape-programmable living surfaces.
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| Title: | Guidance of cellular nematic elastomers into shape-programmable living surfaces. |
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| Authors: | Guillamat, Pau (AUTHOR), Mirza, Waleed (AUTHOR), Bal, Pradeep K. (AUTHOR), Gómez-González, Manuel (AUTHOR), Roca-Cusachs, Pere (AUTHOR), Arroyo, Marino (AUTHOR), Trepat, Xavier (AUTHOR) |
| Source: | Science. 4/16/2026, Vol. 392 Issue 6795, p317-323. 7p. |
| Subjects: | Topological defects (Physics), Strains & stresses (Mechanics), Morphogenesis, Deformation of surfaces, Liquid crystals, Soft robotics |
| Abstract: | Engineering living materials that autonomously morph into predetermined shapes holds potential for synthetic morphogenesis and soft robotics. Harnessing cellular tissues to self-organize and generate forces offers a promising route toward this goal. However, controlling tissue mechanics to direct morphogenesis remains challenging. We introduce a strategy to program tissue-shape transformations through nematic organization of cellular forces. By controlling nematic order and topological defects, we generate tissues programmed with specific stress fields. Using a theoretical framework coupling contractile nematics with thin-sheet mechanics, we show that nematically guided active stresses can drive morphogenesis through Gaussian morphing. Experimentally, detachment of nematic tissues triggers out-of-plane deformations, generating reproducible three-dimensional shapes. Integrating contractility and nematic patterning, our approach establishes a framework for designing shape-programmable living surfaces. Editor's summary: Active nematic systems can generate mechanical stresses around defects, and these phenomena are known to play a major role in natural processes. Guillamat et al. explored a fundamental topic in developmental biology: how three-dimensional (3D) shape can develop from flat tissues (see the Perspective by Dunlop and Kowalewska). They used a combination of mechanical simulations, surface patterning, live-cell imaging, and traction force microscopy to characterize how liquid crystal defects give rise to traction fields that can (when relaxed) give rise to 3D shape. Surface patterning can guide the formation and location of defects, making it possible to control and program a patterned stress field in a sheet of adherent cells. When detached from the substrate, the cell sheet relaxes the stress field, giving rise to 3D shape changes or buckling. Digesting extracellular matrix with collagenase showed that this indeed happens experimentally, with deformed shapes that depend on the number and position of topological defects. —Marc S. Lavine [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| Database: | Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection |
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