Related papers: The morphodynamics of 3D migrating cancer cells
The motility of eukaryotic cells is strongly influenced by their environment, with confined cells often developing qualitatively different motility patterns from those migrating on simple two-dimensional substrates. Recent experiments,…
The phenomenological model for cell shape deformation and cell migration (Chen et.al. 2018; Vermolen and Gefen 2012) is extended with the incorporation of cell traction forces and the evolution of cell equilibrium shapes as a result of cell…
In vivo, eukaryotic cells are embedded in a matrix environment, where they grow and develop. Generally, this extracellular matrix (ECM) is an anisotropic fibrous structure, through which macromolecules and biochemical signaling molecules at…
Experimental evidence indicates that human brain cancer cells proliferate or migrate, yet do not display both phenotypes at the same time. Here, we present a novel computational model simulating this cellular decision-process leading up to…
Cell migration is an indispensable physiological and pathological process for normal tissue development and cancer metastasis, which is greatly regulated by intracellular signal pathways and extracellular microenvironment (ECM). However,…
We propose a multiscale model of the invasion of the extracellular matrix by two types of cancer cells, the differentiated cancer cells and the cancer stem cells. We assume that the epithelial mesenchymal-like transition between them is…
Cell polarization and directional cell migration can display random, persistent and oscillatory dynamic patterns. However, it is not clear if these polarity patterns can be explained by the same underlying regulatory mechanism. Here, we…
Uncontrolled growth of tumor cells in confined spaces leads to the accumulation of compressive stress within the tumor. Although the effects of tension within 3D extracellular matrices on tumor growth and invasion are well established, the…
Local cancer cell invasion is a complex process involving many cellular and tissue interactions and is an important prerequisite for metastatic spread, the main cause of cancer related deaths. Occurring over many different temporal and…
During epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), epithelial cells change their morphology, disperse, and gain mesenchymal-like characteristics. Usually, cells are categorized into discrete cell types or states based on gene expression and…
Studying cell morphology changes in time is critical to understanding cell migration mechanisms. In this work, we present a deep learning-based workflow to segment cancer cells embedded in 3D collagen matrices and imaged with phase-contrast…
Based on symmetry consideration of migration and shape deformations, we formulate phenomenologically the dynamics of cell crawling in two dimensions. Forces are introduced to change the cell shape. The shape deformations induce migration of…
We formulate haptotaxis models of cancer invasion wherein the infiltrating cancer cells can occupy a spectrum of states in phenotype space, ranging from `fully mesenchymal' to `fully epithelial'. The more mesenchymal cells are those that…
The transition from the epithelial to mesenchymal phenotype and its reverse (from mesenchymal to epithelial) are crucial processes necessary for the progression and spread of cancer. In this paper, we investigate how phenotypic switching at…
Cell migration is a fundamental process involved in physiological phenomena such as the immune response and morphogenesis, but also in pathological processes, such as the development of tumor metastasis. These functions are effectively…
During tissue invasion individual tumor cells exhibit two interconvertible migration modes, namely mesenchymal and amoeboid migration. The cellular microenvironment triggers the switch between both modes, thereby allowing adaptation to…
Cell shape is determined by a balance of intrinsic properties of the cell as well as its mechanochemical environment. Inhomogeneous shape changes underly many morphogenetic events and involve spatial gradients in active cellular forces…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
Morphogenetic dynamics of tissue sheets require coordinated cell shape changes regulated by global patterning of mechanical forces. Inspired by such biological phenomena, we propose a minimal mechanochemical model based on the notion that…
This paper concerns a model for tumor cell migration through the surrounding extracellular matrix by considering mass balance phenomena involving the chemical interactions produced on the cell surface. The well-posedness of this model is…