Aligned fibers direct collective cell migration to engineer closing and nonclosing wound gaps.

ABSTRACT: Cell emergence onto damaged or organized fibrous extracellular matrix (ECM) is a crucial precursor to collective cell migration in wound closure and cancer metastasis, respectively. However, there is a fundamental gap in our quantitative understanding of the role of local ECM size and arrangement in cell emergence-based migration and local gap closure. Here, using ECM-mimicking nanofibers bridging cell monolayers, we describe a method to recapitulate and quantitatively describe these in vivo behaviors over multispatial (single cell to cell sheets) and temporal (minutes to weeks) scales. On fiber arrays with large interfiber spacing, cells emerge (invade) either singularly by breaking cell-cell junctions analogous to release of a stretched rubber band (recoil), or in groups of few cells (ch

SUBMITTER: Sharma P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5597329 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature