Chalmers Conferences, 9th European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology

Modelling chemotactic motion of cells in biological tissues
Bakhti Vasiev

Last modified: 2014-03-28

Abstract


Developmental processes in biology are underlined by proliferation, differentiation and migration of cells. The latter two are interlinked since cellular differentiation is governed by the dynamics of morphogens which, in turn, is affected by the movement of cells. Mutual effects of morphogenetic and cell movement patterns are enhanced when the movement is due to chemotactic response of cells to the morphogens. In this presentation I introduce mathematical models to analyse how this interplay results into formation of propagating wave solution in a concentration field of a morphogen and associated steady movement of cells in tissue. It is found that a group of cells can push itself to move, provided that it produces a chemical which acts as a chemorepellent to its constituent cells. Also, the group of cells can be pulled to move by a chemoattractor produced by the surrounding cells in a tissue. Even when group is formed by cells which are not chemotacticaly active it can move when surrounding cells react chemotactically on morphogen produced inside or outside of the moving group. The model is also extended to consider proliferation and differentiation of cells forming the moving group.

Keywords


chemotaxis, embryo