SciPost Phys. 19, 097 (2025) ·
published 15 October 2025
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Ever since the ground breaking work of Trepat et al. in 2009, we know that cell colonies growing on a substrate can be under tensile mechanical stress. The origin of tension has so far been attributed to cellular motility forces being oriented outward of the colony. Works in the field mainly revolve around how this orientation of the forces can be explained, ranging from velocity alignment to self-sorting due to self-propulsion. In this work, we demonstrate that tension in growing colonies can also be explained without cellular motility forces! Using a combination of well established tissue growth simulation technique and analytical modelling, we show how tension can arise as a consequence of simple mechanics of growing tissues. Combining these models with a minimalistic motility model shows how colonies can expand while under even larger tension. Furthermore, our results and analytical models provide novel analysis procedures to identify the underlying mechanics.
