Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 32: Posters: Physics of Cells

BP 32.12: Poster

Thursday, March 25, 2010, 17:15–20:00, Poster B1

Tumor cell invasion as a random walk with density dependent diffusivity — •Claus Metzner, Julian Steinwachs, Franz Stadler, Martina Fellner, Claudia Mierke, Andreas Kronwald, Sebastian Probst, and Ben Fabry — Biophysics Group, Department of Physics, University of Erlangen, Germany

An important problem in cancer research is to understand the migration of tumor cells through connective tissue. We investigate the invasion of a layer of carcinoma cells into a 3D collagen gel and measure the temporal development of the spatial cell distribution. The distributions do not resemble normal particle diffusion into a half space. In particular, a strong dependence on initial cell density is indicative of collective effects. We show that all characteristic features are captured by a simple model: cells detect the presence of closeby neighbors, form clusters, and have a reduced diffusion constant in this clustered state. By optimizing only three parameters, the diffusion constants and the detection range, quantitative agreement is obtained between measured and Monte-Carlo-simulated invasion profiles.