A statistical approach to estimating the strength of cell-cell interactions under the differential adhesion hypothesis.
BACKGROUND
The Differential Adhesion Hypothesis (DAH) is a theory of the organization of cells within a tissue which has been validated by several biological experiments and tested against several alternative computational models.


RESULTS
In this study, a statistical approach was developed for the estimation of the strength of adhesion, incorporating earlier discrete lattice models into a continuous marked point process framework. This framework allows to describe an ergodic Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm that can simulate the model and reproduce empirical biological patterns. The estimation procedure, based on a pseudo-likelihood approximation, is validated with simulations, and a brief application to medulloblastoma stained by beta-catenin markers is given.


CONCLUSIONS
Our model includes the strength of cell-cell adhesion as a statistical parameter. The estimation procedure for this parameter is consistent with experimental data and would be useful for high-throughput cancer studies.
Emily
Mathieu
M
TIMC-TIMB, Université Joseph Fourier, INP Grenoble, Faculty of Medicine, 38706 La Tronche cedex, France. memily@daimi.au.dk
François
Olivier
O
D002448:Cell Adhesion; D006801:Humans; D008527:Medulloblastoma / Q000473:pathology; D008954:Models, Biological; D015233:Models, Statistical