A railroad of cells: Computer simulations explain cell movement

Originally published by the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, on June 19, 2024

Snapshots of the cell railroad. Cells stretch away from a fish scale (left) into artificial lanes (red) and form trains (middle) in different sizes (right). Credit: Vercurysse, Brückner et al./Nature Physics

Looking under the microscope, a group of cells slowly moves forward in a line, like a train on the tracks. The cells navigate through complex environments. A new approach by researchers involving the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) now shows how they do this and how they interact with each other. The experimental observations and the following mathematical concept are published in Nature Physics.

The majority of the cells in the human body cannot move. Some specific ones, however, can go to different places. For example, in wound healing, cells move through the body to repair damaged tissue. They sometimes travel alone or in different group sizes.

Although the process is increasingly understood, little is known about how cells interact while traveling and how they collectively navigate the complex environments found in the body. An interdisciplinary team of theoretical physicists at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and experimentalists from the University of Mons in Belgium now has new insights.

Much like social dynamics experiments, where understanding the interactions of a small group of people is easier than analyzing an entire society, the scientists studied the traveling behavior of a small group of cells in well-defined in vitro surroundings, i.e. outside a living organism, in a Petri dish equipped with interior features. Based on their findings, they developed a framework of interaction rules.

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