Epithelia are contiguous sheets of cells that stabilize the shape of internal organs and support their structure by covering their surfaces. They acquire diverse morphological forms appropriate for their specific functions during embryonic development, such as the kidney tubules and the complex branching structures found in the lung. The maintenance of epithelial morphogenesis and homeostasis is controlled by their remarkable mechanics-epithelia can become elastic, plastic, and viscous by actively remodeling cell-cell junctions and modulating the distribution of local stresses. Microfabrication, finite element modelling, light-sheet microscopy, and robotic micromanipulation are used to show that collagen gels covered with an epithelial skin serve as shape-programmable soft matter. The process involves solid to fluid transitions induced by mechanical perturbations, generates spatially distributed surface stresses at tissue interfaces, and is amenable to both additive and subtractive manufacturing techniques. The robustness and versatility of this strategy for engineering designer tissues is demonstrated by directing the morphogenesis of a variety of molded, carved, and assembled forms from the base material. The results provide insight into the active mechanical properties of the epithelia and establish methods for engineering tissues with sustainable architectures.
Keywords: computational mechanics; mechanobiology; microengineering; robotics; tissue engineering.
© 2021 The Authors. Advanced Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.