Unraveling the Role of Cell-ECM

The mechanism by which multiple cells form patterns remains partly unknown. It is important during development, in which cells start as identical in a rounded embryo and move and differentiate to form all tissues and organs. Many experiments have revealed the importance of chemical signals as well as mechanical forces in directing cell behavior and resulting in this pattern formation. Angiogenesis, the formation of blood vessels from existing ones, provides a good model system; in its first steps few cells leave a larger population for form a sprout. We propose developing a multiscale computational model that can model cell rearrangements in a sprout. By using high resolution microscopy, we can calculate movements of cells and extracellular components in a collagen gel to obtain the forces exerted by cells and information on cellular attachments to surroundings. Experimental results will be used to validate the model, thus gaining insight into current processes that cannot be quantified experimentally such as cell-cell adhesion regulation and individual cell protein expression. The results of this study can be applied to tissue engineering, cell migration studies, developmental biology, and cancer biology.