Growth and form of melanoma cell colonies

TL;DR

This study analyzes melanoma cell colonies grown in vitro, revealing that their size distribution fits a continuous time branching process and that shape fluctuations are best modeled by rim-restricted cell division.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed statistical analysis of melanoma colonies, linking experimental data with a novel model emphasizing rim-restricted cell division.

Findings

Colony size distribution fits a continuous time branching process.

Shape fluctuations are characterized by eccentricity distributions.

Rim-restricted cell division models best match experimental data.

Abstract

We study the statistical properties of melanoma cell colonies grown in vitro by analyzing the results of crystal violet assays at different concentrations of initial plated cells and for different growth times. The distribution of colony sizes is described well by a continuous time branching process. To characterize the shape fluctuations of the colonies, we compute the distribution of eccentricities. The experimental results are compared with numerical results for models of random division of elastic cells, showing that experimental results are best reproduced by restricting cell division to the outer rim of the colony. Our results serve to illustrate the wealth of information that can be extracted by a standard experimental method such as the crystal violet assay.