Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Topological defects in biological matter

  • Comment
  • Published:

From Nature Reviews Physics

View current issue Sign up to alerts

Topological defects play an important role in biology, as shown by a growing body of evidence. Aleksandra Ardaševa and Amin Doostmohammadi survey the new research directions that are opening.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1: Moving bacteria can be trapped by topological defects of their own making.

References

  1. Langer, J. S. & Ambegaokar, V. Intrinsic resistive transition in narrow superconducting channels. Phys. Rev. 164, 498–510 (1967).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Marchetti, M. C. et al. Hydrodynamics of soft active matter. Rev. Mod. Phys. 85, 1143–1189 (2013).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. Shankar, S. et al. Topological active matter. Nat. Rev. Phys. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00445-3 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Doostmohammadi, A. et al. Active nematics. Nat. Commun. 9, 3246 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Saw, T. et al. Topological defects in epithelia govern cell death and extrusion. Nature 544, 212–216 (2017).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Maroudas-Sacks, Y. et al. Topological defects in the nematic order of actin fibres as organization centres of Hydra morphogenesis. Nat. Phys. 17, 251–259 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Meacock, O. J. et al. Bacteria solve the problem of crowding by moving slowly. Nat. Phys. 17, 205–210 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Doostmohammadi, A. & Ladoux, B. Physics of liquid crystals in cell biology. Trends Cell Biol. 32, 140–150 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Turiv, T. et al. Topology control of human fibroblast cells monolayer by liquid crystal elastomer. Sci. Adv. 6, eaaz6485 (2020).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Endresen, K. D. et al. Topological defects of integer charge in cell monolayers. Soft Matter 17, 5878–5887 (2021).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

A.D. acknowledges funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation (grant no. NNF18SA0035142), Villum Fonden (grant no. 29476). A.A. and A.D. acknowledge support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 847523 (INTERACTIONS).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Aleksandra Ardaševa & Amin Doostmohammadi

Authors
  1. Aleksandra Ardaševa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Amin Doostmohammadi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amin Doostmohammadi.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ardaševa, A., Doostmohammadi, A. Topological defects in biological matter. Nat Rev Phys 4, 354–356 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00469-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00469-9

  • Springer Nature Limited

This article is cited by

Search

Navigation