ReviewCells & development2021
Are cell jamming and unjamming essential in tissue development?
Review in Cells & development, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 84 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cell jamming transition is regulated by mitochondrial pyruvate transport and endocytosis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- α-Parvin regulation of cell rearrangement is critical for ureteric bud branching morphogenesis.Science advances · 2026Article
- Glassy dynamics in active epithelia emerge from an interplay of mechanochemical feedback and crowding.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Tissue rigidity phase transition shapes morphogen gradients.Nature cell biology · 2026Article
- Dynamic heterogeneity and hidden fluidity in dense epithelial tissues.Science advances · 2026Article
- Beyond the membrane: rethinking EGFR signaling in physiology and cancer.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2026Review
- Scaling the glassy dynamics of active particles: Tunable fragility and reentrance.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Adhesion-driven rigidity transition decoupled from density-driven jamming triggers epithelial organization in embryonic tissues.Nature physics · 2026Article
- Shape, Strain, and Stability: Epithelia Under High Strain.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Cell jamming transitions can affect regulatory protein gradients and prime evolutionary divergence.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Coping with uncertainty: Challenges for robust pattern formation in dynamical tissues.Seminars in cell & developmental biology · 2025Review
- Anatomical and molecular insights into avian inner ear sensory hair cell regeneration.Developmental biology · 2025Review
- The TissueTractor: A Device for Applying Large Strains to Tissues and Cells for Simultaneous High-Resolution Live Cell Microscopy.Small methods · 2025Article
- Review
- Unjamming Transition as a Paradigm for Biomechanical Control of Cancer Metastasis.Cytoskeleton (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2025Review
- Prickle2 regulates apical junction remodeling and tissue fluidity during vertebrate neurulation.The Journal of cell biology · 2025Article
- Epithelial Layer Fluidization by Curvature-Induced Unjamming.Physical review letters · 2025Article
- Large-scale control over collective cell migration using light-activated epidermal growth factor receptors.Cell systems · 2025Article
- Interfacial energy constraints are sufficient to align cells over large distances.Biophysical journal · 2025Article
- Frontiers in mechanobiology and mechanomedicine.Med-X · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The last decade has seen a surge of evidence supporting the existence of the transition of the multicellular tissue from a collective material phase that is regarded as being jammed to a collective material phase that is regarded as being unjammed. The jammed phase is solid-like and effectively 'frozen', and therefore is associated with tissue homeostasis, rigidity, and mechanical stability. The unjammed phase, by contrast, is fluid-like and effectively 'melted', and therefore is associated with mechanical fluidity, plasticity and malleability that are required in dynamic multicellular processes that sculpt organ microstructure. Such multicellular sculpturing, for example, occurs during embryogenesis, growth and remodeling. Although unjamming and jamming events in the multicellular collective are reminiscent of those that occur in the inert granular collective, such as grain in a hopper that can flow or clog, the analogy is instructive but limited, and the implications for cell biology remain unclear. Here we ask, are the cellular jamming transition and its inverse --the unjamming transition-- mere epiphenomena? That is, are they dispensable downstream events that accompany but neither cause nor quench these core multicellular processes? Drawing from selected examples in developmental biology, here we suggest the hypothesis that, to the contrary, the graded departure from a jammed phase enables controlled degrees of malleability as might be required in developmental dynamics. We further suggest that the coordinated approach to a jammed phase progressively slows those dynamics and ultimately enables long-term mechanical stability as might be required in the mature homeostatic multicellular tissue.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.