AI Insight
This paper presents a three-dimensional mechano-geometric multicellular model designed to simulate apical stem cell-driven plant morphogenesis, with a focus on how cell division orientation rules contribute to the establishment of symmetric plant body plans. The model integrates realistic three-dimensional cell mechanics, irreversible cell-wall growth, and deformable tissue geometry, using a triangulated thin-shell representation of individual cells. The authors document the computational and physiological foundations of the framework, including the handling of turgor pressure, cell-wall elasticity, strain-driven growth, and remeshing operations that maintain numerical stability as cells evolve.
Why it matters
This modeling framework provides plant biologists with an accessible and customizable tool to test hypotheses about developmental patterning, which could advance understanding of how simple mechanical rules produce complex plant architectures. Such insights may have downstream applications in synthetic biology and crop improvement through targeted manipulation of growth programs.
arXiv:2605.13070v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The orientation of cell division is a major determinant of three-dimensional plant morphogenesis. Whether and how a simple division orientation rule explains the establishment of symmetric body plans is a fundamental question. Testing such hypotheses is facilitated by a modeling framework that combines realistic three-dimensional cell mechanics, irreversible cell-wall growth, and a deformable tissue geometry. We recently introduced such a framework, a 3D mechano-geometric multicellular model of apical stem cell-driven morphogenesis. Here we document how the model is built from physiological and computational perspectives. We describe the triangulated thin-shell representation of cells, the treatment of turgor pressure, cell-wall elasticity and strain-driven wall growth, the cell-division algorithm together with its two pluggable division-rule implementations, and the remeshing operations that keep the triangulation well-conditioned as cells grow, divide, and deform. The aim of this paper is to make the present model accessible and customizable to experimental plant biologists.
Source: 3D mechano-geometric multicellular model of apical stem cell-driven plant morphogenesis