Distribution of Chemoattractants in a Heterogeneous Tissue and its Impact on Cell Cluster Migration
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2017
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Jessica Cooley, Aaron George, Zachary Mekus, Victoria Sabo, Morgan Strzegowski, Bradford E. Peercy, Michelle Starz-Gaiano, Distribution of Chemoattractants in a Heterogeneous Tissue and its Impact on Cell Cluster Migration REU Site : Interdisciplinary Program in High Performance Computing, 2017
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This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by UMBC for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the author.
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode
Abstract
Cell migration is the process in living organisms by which the body heals and diseases spread, so comprehension of this mechanism is beneficial to understanding its applications. We studied the cluster cell migration in the egg chamber of Drosophila melanogaster, or fruit flies, because it is easy to observe and is relatively simple in that organism. A previous model simulates the cell cluster’s migration using forces to determine movement of many individual cells. We improved and revised this system, creating a geometrically accurate model of the egg chamber and mapping the diffusion of the chemoattractants through that domain using a reaction diffusion system. In addition, the base implementation was updated to more accurately simulate the cell migration process. This model aided us in addressing several uncertainties of cluster cell migration, such as identifying the source and quantity of the chemoattractants, the rate at which they are taken in by other cells in the egg chamber, if at all, and the time needed for them to reach the polar and border cells at the anterior of the chamber that gives the most faithful representation of experimental results.