Transitions Between Cooperative and Crowding-Dominated Collective Motion in non-Jammed MDCK Monolayers

TL;DR

This paper investigates how collective cell motion transitions between cooperative and crowding-dominated states in MDCK monolayers, revealing that increased mechanical coupling can enhance cell migration under certain conditions.

Contribution

It uncovers that cell migration speeds can increase with packing density and cohesiveness, challenging traditional views of motion suppression in dense tissues.

Findings

Cell migration speeds increase with density and cohesiveness at certain levels.

Transitions between motion regimes are influenced by active cellular responses to forces.

Counterintuitive enhancement of movement in crowded conditions was observed.

Abstract

Transitions between solid-like and fluid-like states in living tissues have been found in steps of embryonic development and in stages of disease progression. Our current understanding of these transitions has been guided by experimental and theoretical investigations focused on how motion becomes arrested with increased mechanical coupling between cells, typically as a function of packing density or cell cohesiveness. However, cells actively respond to externally applied forces by contracting after a time delay, so it is possible that at some packing densities or levels of cell cohesiveness, mechanical coupling stimulates cell motion instead of suppressing it. Here we report our findings that at low densities and within multiple ranges of cell cohesiveness, cell migration speeds increase with these measures of mechanical coupling. Our observations run counter to our intuition that cell motion will be suppressed by increasingly packing or sticking cells together and may provide new insight into biological processes involving motion in dense cell populations.