Kollektive Bewegung von zusammenhängenden Zellen

身体的主要组织，即上皮，由物理上贴附的细胞层组成。粘附力耦合了这些粘连结构中细胞的运动，导致了集体运动，其中细胞保持其邻居只在长时间尺度上表现出滑动。这一集体运动是上皮组织在形态发生、损伤后愈合和癌细胞入侵过程中生长和排列的核心。此外，微生物细胞在生物膜内形成粘性薄片。由于生物膜是一种常见的感染源，了解控制生物膜生长的细胞的集体运动对于防止生物膜的传播至关重要。这项研究计划的目标是发展一种凝聚细胞集体运动的理论描述，以使细胞机械特性和组织内细胞的动态行为之间能够直接联系。首先研究了由于集体细胞运动引起的组织扩散，然后描述了由细胞增殖触发的集体运动，因为它出现在整体组织和细菌生物膜中。采用计算机模拟和数学模拟相结合的方法，研究了发育和肿瘤侵袭过程中集体运动细胞的形态和明确的场景。在整个项目中，将对数学模型和实验数据进行比较和评估。这些结果对于理解机械扰动如何触发伤口愈合反应，肿瘤细胞如何侵袭粘连组织，以及细胞的机械和动力学特性如何决定组织的形态发生具有重要意义。关于药理试剂对抗细菌感染的局限性，该项目的结果可能有助于发明新的机械方法来移除或破坏危急环境中的生物膜。

The prime body tissues, epithelia, consist of layers of physically adherent cells. The adhesion couples the motion of cells within these cohesive structures giving rise to a collective motion, where cells retain their neighbors exhibiting sliding only on long time scales. This collective motion lies at the heart of growth and arrangement of epithelial tissues during morphogenesis, their healing after lesion and the invasion of cancerous cells into their midst. Also microbial cells form cohesive sheets within biofilms. As biofilms are a common source of infections an understanding of the collective motion of cells governing biofilm growth is pivotal to prevent spreading of biofilms. The goal of this research program is to develop a theoretical description of the collective motion of cohesive cells to enable a direct connection between cell mechanical properties and the dynamic behavior of cells within tissues. First tissue spreading due to collective cell motion is investigated, followed by a description of collective motion triggered by cell proliferation as it arises in bulk tissue and bacterial biofilms. Employing both computer simulations and mathematical modeling the morphology of collectively moving cells and explicit scenarios during development and tumor invasion are studied. Throughout the project mathematical models and experimental data will be compared and evaluated. The results are relevant to understand how mechanical perturbations can trigger a wound healing response, how tumor cells can invade a cohesive tissue and how cell mechanical and dynamical properties determine the morphogenesis of tissues. Concerning the limits of pharmacological reagents to fight bacterial infections the results of this program might help to invent new mechanical methods to remove or destroy biofilms in critical settings.