During tissue morphogenesis, local chemical and mechanical interactions between neighboring cells can lead to complex collective behaviors as cells coordinate their motion, their shape, and even their fate to reshape a tissue. Many elongated cells, including smooth muscles and some sarcomas, organize in an anisotropic phase in vivo. However, little is known about how this long-range nematic order can affect cell behavior and the propagation of biochemical signals within the tissue. Here, we study how local cell alignment and cell network topology can affect cells ability to collectively process chemical information and communicate with each other’s. 

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