4.6 Article

Morpho-elasticity of intestinal villi

Journal

JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INTERFACE
Volume 10, Issue 82, Pages -

Publisher

ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2013.0109

Keywords

morphoelasticity; villi morphogenesis; elastic stability

Funding

  1. European Community [FP7 ERG-256605]

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Villi are ubiquitous structures in the intestine of all vertebrates, originating from the embryonic development of the epithelial mucosa. Their morphogenesis has similar stages in living organisms but different forming mechanisms. In this work, we model the emergence of the bi-dimensional undulated patterns in the intestinal mucosa from which villi start to elongate. The embryonic mucosa is modelled as a growing thick-walled cylinder, and its mechanical behaviour is described using an hyperelastic constitutive model, which also accounts for the anisotropic characteristics of the reinforcing fibres at the microstructural level. The occurrence of surface undulations is investigated using a linear stability analysis based on the theory of incremental deformations superimposed on a finite deformation. The Stroh formulation of the incremental boundary value problem is derived, and a numerical solution procedure is implemented for calculating the growth thresholds of instability. The numerical results are finally discussed with respect to different growth and materials properties. In conclusion, we demonstrate that the emergence of intestinal villi in embryos is triggered by a differential growth between the mucosa and the mesenchymal tissues. The proposed model quantifies how both the geometrical and the mechanical properties of the mucosa drive the formation of previllous structures in embryos.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.6
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available