Study on Multicellular Systems Using a Phase Field Model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a phase field model for multicellular systems that captures cell shapes, adhesion, and movement, enabling efficient numerical simulations of large cell populations in two and three dimensions.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel phase field model that simplifies cell shape representation and incorporates key biological interactions without extra variables.

Findings

Simulated cell adhesion and rearrangement behaviors.

Demonstrated chemotaxis in two-dimensional models.

Modeled 3D cell cluster formations on substrates.

Abstract

A model of multicellular systems with several types of cells is developed from the phase field model. The model is presented as a set of partial differential equations of the field variables, each of which expresses the shape of one cell. The dynamics of each cell is based on the criteria for minimizing the surface area and retaining a certain volume. The effects of cell adhesion and excluded volume are also taken into account. The proposed model can be used to find the position of the membrane and/or the cortex of each cell without the need to adopt extra variables. This model is suitable for numerical simulations of a system having a large number of cells. The two-dimensional results of cell adhesion, rearrangement of a cell cluster, and chemotaxis as well as the three-dimensional results of cell clusters on the substrate are presented.