Cell migration in highly constrained environments is fundamental in a wide variety of physiological and pathological phenomena. In particular, it has been experimentally shown that the migratory capacity of most cell lines depends on their ability to transmigrate through narrow constrictions, which in turn relies on their deformation capacity. In this respect, the nucleus, which occupies a large fraction of the cell volume and is substantially stiffer than the surrounding cytoplasm, imposes a major obstacle. This aspect has also been investigated with the use of microfluidic devices formed by dozens of arrays of aligned polymeric pillars that limit the available space for cell movement. Such experimental systems, in particular, in the designs developed by the groups of Denais and of Davidson, were here reproduced with a tailored version of the Cellular Potts model, a grid-based stochastic approach where cell dynamics are established by a Metropolis algorithm for energy minimization. The proposed model allowed quantitatively analyzing selected cell migratory determinants (e.g., the cell and nuclear speed and deformation, and forces acting at the nuclear membrane) in the case of different experimental setups. Most of the numerical results show a remarkable agreement with the corresponding empirical data.

A Cellular Potts Model for Analyzing Cell Migration across Constraining Pillar Arrays / Scianna, Marco; Preziosi, Luigi. - In: AXIOMS. - ISSN 2075-1680. - 10:1(2021), p. 32. [10.3390/axioms10010032]

A Cellular Potts Model for Analyzing Cell Migration across Constraining Pillar Arrays

Marco Scianna;Luigi Preziosi
2021

Abstract

Cell migration in highly constrained environments is fundamental in a wide variety of physiological and pathological phenomena. In particular, it has been experimentally shown that the migratory capacity of most cell lines depends on their ability to transmigrate through narrow constrictions, which in turn relies on their deformation capacity. In this respect, the nucleus, which occupies a large fraction of the cell volume and is substantially stiffer than the surrounding cytoplasm, imposes a major obstacle. This aspect has also been investigated with the use of microfluidic devices formed by dozens of arrays of aligned polymeric pillars that limit the available space for cell movement. Such experimental systems, in particular, in the designs developed by the groups of Denais and of Davidson, were here reproduced with a tailored version of the Cellular Potts model, a grid-based stochastic approach where cell dynamics are established by a Metropolis algorithm for energy minimization. The proposed model allowed quantitatively analyzing selected cell migratory determinants (e.g., the cell and nuclear speed and deformation, and forces acting at the nuclear membrane) in the case of different experimental setups. Most of the numerical results show a remarkable agreement with the corresponding empirical data.
2021
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
Scianna_Preziosi_axioms_21.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: 2a Post-print versione editoriale / Version of Record
Licenza: Creative commons
Dimensione 1.72 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
1.72 MB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri
Pubblicazioni consigliate

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11583/2877494