dictyNews
Electronic Edition
Volume 42, number 25
October 28, 2016

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Abstracts
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Inference of the drivers of collective movement in two cell types: 
Dictyostelium and melanoma

Elaine A. Ferguson, Jason Matthiopoulos, Robert H. Insall and 
Dirk Husmeier

Royal Society Interface, in press


Collective cell movement is a key component of many important 
biological processes, including wound healing, the immune 
response and the spread of cancers. To understand and influence 
these movements, we need to be able to identify and quantify the 
contribution of their different underlying mechanisms. Here, we 
define a set of six candidate models—formulated as advection–
diffusion–reaction partial differential equations—that incorporate 
a range of cell movement drivers. We fitted these models to 
movement assay data from two different cell types: Dictyostelium 
discoideum and human melanoma. Model comparison using widely 
applicable information criterion suggested that movement in both 
of our study systems was driven primarily by a self-generated 
gradient in the concentration of a depletable chemical in the 
cells’ environment. For melanoma, there was also evidence that 
overcrowding influenced movement. These applications of model 
inference to determine the most likely drivers of cell movement 
indicate that such statistical techniques have potential to support 
targeted experimental work in increasing our understanding of 
collective cell movement in a range of systems.


submitted by: Robert Insall [[log in to unmask]]
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[End dictyNews, volume 42, number 25]