Multi-scale models of cell and tissue dynamics.
Cell and tissue movement are essential processes at various stages in the life cycle of most organisms. The early development of multi-cellular organisms involves individual and collective cell movement; leukocytes must migrate towards sites of infection as part of the immune response; and in cancer, directed movement is involved in invasion and metastasis. The forces needed to drive movement arise from actin polymerization, molecular motors and other processes, but understanding the cell- or tissue-level organization of these processes that is needed to produce the forces necessary for directed movement at the appropriate point in the cell or tissue is a major challenge. In this paper, we present three models that deal with the mechanics of cells and tissues: a model of an arbitrarily deformable single cell, a discrete model of the onset of tumour growth in which each cell is treated individually, and a hybrid continuum-discrete model of the later stages of tumour growth. While the models are different in scope, their underlying mechanical and mathematical principles are similar and can be applied to a variety of biological systems.
Stolarska
Magdalena A
MA
Department of Mathematics, University of St Thomas, 2115 Summit Avenue, St Paul, MN 55105, USA.
Kim
Yangjin
Y
Othmer
Hans G
HG
D000818:Animals; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D002465:Cell Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D004548:Elasticity; D006801:Humans; D040542:Mechanotransduction, Cellular / Q000502:physiology; D008954:Models, Biological; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology