Moving forward moving backward: directional sorting of chemotactic cells due to size and adhesion differences.

ABSTRACT: Differential movement of individual cells within tissues is an important yet poorly understood process in biological development. Here we present a computational study of cell sorting caused by a combination of cell adhesion and chemotaxis, where we assume that all cells respond equally to the chemotactic signal. To capture in our model mesoscopic properties of biological cells, such as their size and deformability, we use the Cellular Potts Model, a multiscale, cell-based Monte Carlo model. We demonstrate a rich array of cell-sorting phenomena, which depend on a combination of mescoscopic cell properties and tissue level constraints. Under the conditions studied, cell sorting is a fast process, which scales linearly with tissue size. We demonstrate the occurrence of "absolute negative mob

SUBMITTER: Kafer J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1475715 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature