4.8 Article

Migration of cells in a social context

Publisher

NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1204291110

Keywords

cell migration; single-cell analysis; physical modeling; microfluidics

Funding

  1. Programme Commission on Strategic Growth Technologies [2106-08-0018]
  2. Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation

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In multicellular organisms and complex ecosystems, cells migrate in a social context. Whereas this is essential for the basic processes of life, the influence of neighboring cells on the individual remains poorly understood. Previous work on isolated cells has observed a stereotypical migratory behavior characterizedby short-timedirectional persistence with long-time random movement. We discovered a much richer dynamic in the social context, with significant variations in directionality, displacement, and speed, which are all modulated by local cell density. We developed a mathematical model based on the experimentally identified cellular traffic rules and basic physics that revealed that these emergent behaviors are caused by the interplay of single-cell properties and intercellular interactions, the latter being dominated by a pseudopod formation bias mediated by secreted chemicals and pseudopod collapse following collisions. The model demonstrates how aspects of complex biology can be explained by simple rules of physics and constitutes a rapid test bed for future studies of collective migration of individual cells.

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