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Phase-field modeling of border cell cluster migration in Drosophila
Fig 3
Initial state of the model before border cell cluster migration in the egg chamber.
(a) The anterior region contains the border cell cluster (red arrow), while the posterior region contains the oocyte (white arrow), which is larger than the nurse cells. The model includes 6 nurse cells that are heterogeneous in size. Border cells, nurse cells, and the oocyte are shown in yellow. The blue surface represents the epithelial layer phase field, where 
inside the epithelium and 
outside, defining the boundary of the extracellular space. (b) Visualization of the overlap term 
, which highlights spatial regions where individual cells physically contact each other. This quantity is not the total energy; rather, it identifies zones of phase-field overlap that contribute to the interaction-energy component of the model. These regions correspond to interfaces where mechanical interactions— including those associated with TIM forces—are active during migration. The parameters are set as follow: 
, size of spatial grid h = 0.05, the time step of 
, 
for nurse cells, oocyte, and border cell cluster, respectively. Also, 
for all m, 
, 
for epithelial layer. The adhesion intensity 
, 
and 
. The repulsion intensity 
, 
, 
, and 
(See Table A in S1 Text).
doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014176.g003