Energy Dynamics Powered by Traction and Stress Control Formation and Motion of +1/2 Topological Defects in Epithelial Cell Monolayers

Data provided by Pradip K. Bera, Molly McCord, Jun Zhang, and Jacob Notbohm.<br>University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2025.<br>This is a sample data set from the manuscript Energy Dynamics Powered by Traction and Stress Control Formation and Motion of +1/2 Topological Defects in Epithelial Cell Monolayers. Formatting of the data is the same as described in Saraswathibhatla, A., Galles, E. E., and Notbohm, J. Spatiotemporal force and motion in collective cell migration. Sci Data, 7:197, 2020.Briefly, a list of the files included is below:The pixel size is 0.65 microns per pixel. The time between images is 15 min.Time-lapse images of fluorescent particles (c1.tif) and cells (c2.tif), along with the stress-free reference image of the fluorescent particles (c1_ref.tif).An 8-bit image of the boundary of the cell island (domain.tif).The director field of the nematic orientation of cells computed using OrientationJ/ImageJ is provided (Nematic_Orientations.csv).Other data files are in Matlab format; for cell displacements (DIC_results_c2.mat; divide by the time between images, 15 min, to convert to velocity), cell-induced substrate deformations (DIC_results_c1.mat), tractions (displ_tractions.mat), and stresses (stresses.mat).The code to compute traction and stresses is available from https://github.com/jknotbohm/Cell-Traction-Stress. The ExperimentalSettings.txt file is used to run our code.A list of located +1/2 defects in this island is provided (plus_half_Defects.xlsx), where their frame of appearence, head centre co-ordinates, and the direction of motion are mentioned.