Abstract
We measure different contributions to entropy production in a living functional epithelial tissue. We do this by extracting the functional dynamics of development while at the same time quantifying fluctuations. Using the translucent Drosophila melanogaster pupal epithelium as an ideal tissue for high-resolution live imaging, we measure the entropy associated with the stochastic geometry of cells in the epithelium. This is done using a detailed analysis of the dynamics of the shape and orientation of individual cells which enables separation of local and global aspects of the tissue behavior. Intriguingly, we find that we can observe irreversible dynamics in the cell geometries but without a change in the entropy associated with those degrees of freedom, showing that there is a flow of energy into those degrees of freedom. Hence, the living system is controlling how the entropy is being produced and partitioned into its different parts.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 014403 |
| Journal | Physical Review E |
| Volume | 107 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 13 Jan 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The computational resources of the University of Bristol Advanced Computing Research Centre and the BrisSynBio HPC facility are gratefully acknowledged. M.O. acknowledges the support of the Wellcome Trust. J.T. acknowledges a MRC GW4 studentship. T.B.L. acknowledges support of Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant No. RPG-2016-147 and BrisSynBio, a BBSRC/EPSRC Synthetic Biology Research Center (BBSRC Grant No. BB/L01386X/1).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 American Physical Society.
Research Groups and Themes
- Bristol BioDesign Institute
Keywords
- synthetic biology