A biased random walk approach for modeling the collective chemotaxis of neural crest cells

• Published in: Journal of mathematical biology 2024-02, Vol.88 (3), p.32-32, Article 32
• Main Authors: Freingruber, Viktoria, Painter, Kevin J., Ptashnyk, Mariya, Schumacher, Linus J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applications of Mathematics; Bias; Cell Communication; Cell density; Cell interactions; Cell migration; Cell Movement; Cells; Chemotaxis; Contact inhibition; Embryos; Intracellular; Locomotion; Mathematical and Computational Biology; Mathematics; Mathematics and Statistics; Motility; Neural Crest; Partial differential equations; Rac1 protein; Random walk; Simulation
• ISSN: 0303-6812; 1432-1416
• DOI: 10.1007/s00285-024-02047-2

Collective cell migration is a multicellular phenomenon that arises in various biological contexts, including cancer and embryo development. ‘Collectiveness’ can be promoted by cell-cell interactions such as co-attraction and contact inhibition of locomotion. These mechanisms act on cell polarity, pivotal for directed cell motility, through influencing the intracellular dynamics of small GTPases such as Rac1 . To model these dynamics we introduce a biased random walk model, where the bias depends on the internal state of Rac1 , and the Rac1 state is influenced by cell-cell interactions and chemoattractive cues. In an extensive simulation study we demonstrate and explain the scope and applicability of the introduced model in various scenarios. The use of a biased random walk model allows for the derivation of a corresponding partial differential equation for the cell density while still maintaining a certain level of intracellular detail from the individual based setting.