基于自对齐可变形活性膜的上皮细胞单层流动基准测试
Benchmarking the flow of epithelial cell monolayer with self-aligning deformable active membranes
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中文总结 AI 辅助
该研究构建自对齐可变形活性膜模型，结合细胞力学等要素，在模拟上皮细胞绕障迁移的受限流动中开展基准测试，验证其可作为关联细胞特性与组织集体迁移的多功能框架。
中文摘要 AI 辅助
细胞集体迁移源于运动性、可变形性与机械相互作用的协同作用，但将这些要素整合到计算高效的组织模型中仍具挑战性。本文在模拟上皮细胞单层绕圆形障碍物迁移的受限流动几何结构中，对自对齐可变形活性膜进行基准测试。该模型将细胞表示为可变形、具粘附性的膜，其自推进方向会向自身速度弛豫。通过系统改变自对齐时间尺度、细胞间粘附力与入口驱动力，我们通过集体对齐、相对密度、邻居重排及空间速度场表征了产生的流动。该模型捕捉了广泛的组织行为，从无序的类液体流动到高度对齐的类固体状态。与相关的多粒子模型相比，自对齐活性膜实现了更强的集体对齐，表现出更系统的密度响应，并达到更接近固-液谱两个极限的状态。我们进一步表明，增加目标形状指数会促进细胞伸长并加速组织流动，直接将细胞尺度的可变形性与组织尺度的运输关联起来。最后，我们将模拟的速度分布与体外迁移的MDCK上皮细胞单层的实验测量结果进行比较，发现障碍物周围多个水平和垂直截面上存在定性一致性。这些结果确立了自对齐可变形活性膜作为一种多功能框架，用于将细胞力学、形状适应与自对齐关联到受限几何结构中的集体组织迁移。
英文摘要
Collective cell migration emerges from the interplay between motility, deformability and mechanical interactions, yet incorporating these ingredients into computationally efficient tissue models remains challenging. Here, we benchmark self-aligning deformable active membranes in a confined-flow geometry that mimics epithelial monolayer migration around a circular obstacle. In this model, cells are represented as deformable, adhesive membranes whose self-propulsion direction relaxes towards their velocity. By systematically varying the self-alignment timescale, cell-cell adhesion and inlet forcing, we characterize the resulting flows through collective alignment, relative density, neighbor rearrangements and spatial velocity fields. The model captures a broad spectrum of tissue behaviors, ranging from disordered, liquid-like flows to highly aligned, solid-like states. Compared with a related multiparticle model, self-aligning active membranes achieve stronger collective alignment, exhibit a more systematic density response and access states closer to both limits of the solid-liquid spectrum. We further show that increasing the target shape index promotes cell elongation and accelerates tissue flow, directly linking cell-scale deformability to tissue-scale transport. Finally, we compare simulated velocity profiles with experimental measurements from in vitro migrating MDCK epithelial cell monolayers and find qualitative agreement across multiple horizontal and vertical transects around the obstacle. These results establish self-aligning deformable active membranes as a versatile framework for connecting cell mechanics, shape adaptation and self-alignment to collective tissue migration in confined geometries.
