Simulating Organogenesis in COMSOL: Comparison of Methods for Simulating Branching Morphogenesis

During organogenesis tissue grows and deforms. The growth processes are controlled by diffusible proteins, so-called morphogens. Many different patterning mechanisms have been proposed. The stereotypic branching program during lung development can be recapitulated by a receptor-ligand based Turing model [1]. Our group has previously used the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) framework for solving the receptor-ligand Turing model on growing lung domains [2]–[4]. However, complex mesh deformations which occur during lung growth severely limit the number of branch generations that can be simulated. A new Phase-Field implementation avoids mesh deformations by considering the surface of the modelling domains as interfaces between phases, and by coupling the reaction-diffusion framework to these surfaces [5]. In this paper, we present a rigorous comparison between the Phase-Field approach and the ALE-based simulation.