PoC - Physics of Cancer - Annual Symposium
Contributed Talk, Friday, 10:00 – 10:15  
Dynamics of Growing Cell Populations

Anna-Kristina Marel, Joachim O. Rädler

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Faculty of Physics and Center for NanoScience (CeNS), Soft Condensed Matter Group, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 Munich, Germany

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Dynamic remodelling of tissue involves cell deformation, cell migration, cell division and cell death. Here we study the migration of cells from defined microscopic geometries. We prepared reproducible three-dimensional micro-structured array made of PEG-DMA. The structures are filled with cells and serve as equal sources of several migration experiments in parallel. Using image processing we access velocity, growth rate and cell density over time. Due to the confinement, the initial small cell colonies show a higher cell density than freely grown cell groups that have not yet reached confluency. We observe that the cell density relaxes over a time scales corresponding to the doubling time of the cell line. The area of the micro-colony increases more strongly during the initial migration process and crosses then over to exponential growth due to cell division. We analyze the evolution of shape and polarisation of the patches as well as the distinct center-of-mass movement. 

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