Epithelial Tissue Growth Dynamics: Universal or Not?

Abstract

Universality of interfacial roughness in growing epithelial tissue has remained a controversial issue. Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) and Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) universality classes have been reported among other behaviors including total lack of universality. Here, we utilize a kinetic division model for deformable cells to investigate cell-colony scaling. With seemingly minor model changes, it can reproduce both KPZ- and MBE-like scaling in configurations that mimic the respective experiments. This result neutralizes the apparent scaling controversy. It can be speculated that this diversity in growth behavior is beneficial for efficient evolution and versatile growth dynamics.