Fig. 8
From: Sorting at embryonic boundaries requires high heterotypic interfacial tension
Summary diagram comparing HIT and DITH situations. Two cell types A and B are represented in blue and pink. B-type cells abutting A-type cells are in darker pink. In a HIT situation (top), where heterotypic contact tension T AB is higher than the two homotypic tensions, cells tend to establish more stable contacts with sibling cells of the same type. At the tissue scale, this drives full segregation of the two cell populations separated by a sharp boundary. In a classical DITH situation (bottom), blue A-type cells will be able to cluster, but for dark pink B-type cells, heterotypic contacts may be more stable than homotypic contacts, thus these cells will tend to preferentially interact with the less tensile/more adhesive A-type cells, a situation that will not lead to clean segregation of the two cell populations. The middle row illustrates an intermediate situation, where separation may still be achieved provided a sufficiently strong difference between T AB and T AA
