Quirine Braat, Eindhoven University of Technology

Formation of motile cell clusters in heterogeneous model tumors: the role of cell-cell alignment

The formation of migrating cell clusters plays an important role in many biophysical processes, including cancer metastasis. In this work, we investigate how a potential cell-cell alignment mechanism affects the formation of motile cell clusters in the bulk of a heterogeneous tumor. We model the tumor as a two-dimensional heterogeneous confluent layer with both motile and non-motile cells using the Cellular Potts formalism. Our results indicate that the degree of clustering is governed by two distinct processes: the formation of clusters due to the presence of cell-cell alignment interactions among motile cells, and the suppression of clustering due to the presence of the dynamic cellular environment (comprised of the non-motile cells).