Pattern Formation of Glioma Cells: Effects of Adhesion

TL;DR

This study explores how cell-cell adhesion influences glioma cell clustering, revealing a critical adhesion threshold and increased proliferation within clusters, supported by experiments and a stochastic model.

Contribution

It introduces a stochastic model explaining glioma cell clustering mechanisms, highlighting the role of adhesion strength and proliferation rate changes.

Findings

A critical adhesion threshold determines cluster formation.

Cells in clusters exhibit increased proliferation.

The model reproduces experimental clustering behavior.

Abstract

We investigate clustering of malignant glioma cells. \emph{In vitro} experiments in collagen gels identified a cell line that formed clusters in a region of low cell density, whereas a very similar cell line (which lacks an important mutation) did not cluster significantly. We hypothesize that the mutation affects the strength of cell-cell adhesion. We investigate this effect in a new experiment, which follows the clustering dynamics of glioma cells on a surface. We interpret our results in terms of a stochastic model and identify two mechanisms of clustering. First, there is a critical value of the strength of adhesion; above the threshold, large clusters grow from a homogeneous suspension of cells; below it, the system remains homogeneous, similarly to the ordinary phase separation. Second, when cells form a cluster, we have evidence that they increase their proliferation rate. We have successfully reproduced the experimental findings and found that both mechanisms are crucial for cluster formation and growth.