A new mathematical model developed by researchers at the University of Bristol could bring us one step closer to understanding how wounds heal after injury.
Research published in physical review letter The study builds on previous work in Drosophila in which researchers observed how skin-like epithelial cells move to cover wounds.
An important part of wound repair is re-epithelialization. This is a process in which skin cells spread throughout the wound and rebuild the body’s outer protective barrier. When this process is disrupted, the wound remains open and susceptible to infection, so it is important to understand what physical mechanisms and forces contribute to effective closure.
To find out how this healing step works at the level of individual cells, the research team studied wound repair in Drosophila melanogaster. Using advanced deep learning tools to analyze thousands of cells, researchers discovered that cells in fly wings are arranged in highly organized patterns. Each cell is symmetrical from head to tail and tends to line up along the long axis of the wing.
The new mathematical model developed aimed to understand how the alignment pattern of these cells influences the way a wound closes. This model treated tissue like a fluid composed of many elongated, aligned, cell-shaped particles. This approach allowed the researchers to estimate how forces acting within the tissue surrounding the wound affect closure, which had previously been overlooked.
The model predicted that these surrounding or “bulk” forces could cause an initially round wound to stretch and collapse as it closed, following the natural orientation of the surrounding tissue. When the researchers checked their predictions against experimental data, they found exactly this pattern: the shape of the scar changes depending on the orientation of the tissue itself.
This study highlights the importance of forces generated in the periwound tissue, which have been neglected in previous mechanical models of re-epithelialization. We also highlight the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, as models of these bulk tissue forces cannot be estimated without experimental observations of cell alignment. ”
Henry Andraloik, PhD student in Mathematics, co-author
Co-author Taniemora Liverpool, Professor of Theoretical Physics in the School of Mathematics, added: “Our study found that the force generated by the surrounding tissue plays a major role in how quickly a wound heals. When tissue is pulled inward, the wound closes faster. When tissue is pushed outward, the wound closes more slowly.
“The model we developed suggests that the alignment of cells around the wound can cause temporary disruptions to this ordered pattern, but these small irregularities disappear as the wound eventually closes.”
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Reference magazines:
Andralois, H. Others. (2026). Dynamics of wound closure in living nematic epithelia. physical review letter. DOI: 10.1103/8871-8m6c. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/8871-8m6c
