Internal cohesion gradient as a novel mechanism of collective cell migration
Fig 3
Simulations of 5-cell clusters with intercellular cohesion gradient.
(a) The outermost cells, N1 & N5, experience an outward extension of the same distance at the same time, and each colored line shows subsequent positions. The periodic extension causes the cluster to elongate until it reaches a natural equilibrium state. The black dashed line shows the center of mass, which remains stationary. (b) The same simulation in which the outermost cells move both up and down in phase, and (c) the same in which the outermost cells move in and out in phase. As expected, in all cases the center of mass remains stationary except for small transient oscillations. Key parameters are as follows: gradient strength (ratio of strongest to weakest cohesion strengths) = 10, cluster size = 5, protrusion amplitude (length of protrusions) = 1, protrusion period (frequency of protrusions) = 15. Protrusion amplitude is a fixed value in this simulation, whereas all other simulations have a variable amplitude using a Gaussian whose standard deviation is the specified protrusion amplitude.