Mechanobiology of leader–follower dynamics in epithelial cell migration

Collective cell migration is fundamental to biological form and function. It is also relevant to the formation and repair of organs and to various pathological situations, including metastatic propagation of cancer. Technological, experimental, and computational advancements have allowed the researc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current opinion in cell biology 2020-10, Vol.66, p.97-103
Main Authors: Vishwakarma, Medhavi, Spatz, Joachim P., Das, Tamal
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biophysical Phenomena
Biophysics
Cell Movement - physiology
Collective cell migration
Epithelial Cells - cytology
Humans
Jamming
Leader cells
Mechanobiology
Signal Transduction
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Summary:Collective cell migration is fundamental to biological form and function. It is also relevant to the formation and repair of organs and to various pathological situations, including metastatic propagation of cancer. Technological, experimental, and computational advancements have allowed the researchers to explore various aspects of collective migration, spanning from biochemical signalling to inter-cellular force transduction. Here, we summarize our current understanding of the mechanobiology of collective cell migration, limiting to epithelial tissues. On the basis of recent studies, we describe how cells sense and respond to guidance signals to orchestrate various modes of migration and identify the determining factors dictating leader–follower interactions. We highlight how the inherent mechanics of dense epithelial monolayers at multicellular length scale might instruct individual cells to behave collectively. On the basis of these findings, we propose that mechanical resilience, obtained by a certain extent of cell jamming, allows the epithelium to perform efficient collective migration during wound healing.
ISSN:0955-0674
1879-0410
DOI:10.1016/j.ceb.2020.05.007