Kollektive Bewegung von zusammenhängenden Zellen

主要的机体组织，上皮，由物理贴壁的细胞层组成。这种粘附使细胞在这些内聚结构中的运动相互耦合，从而产生一种集体运动，在这种运动中，细胞保留它们的邻居，仅在长时间尺度上表现出滑动。这种集体运动是上皮组织在形态发生过程中的生长和排列、病变后的愈合以及癌细胞侵入其中的核心。微生物细胞也在生物膜内形成有凝聚力的薄片。由于生物膜是感染的常见来源，了解控制生物膜生长的细胞集体运动对于防止生物膜的扩散至关重要。本研究计划的目标是发展一个理论描述的集体运动的内聚细胞，使细胞力学性能和组织内细胞的动态行为之间的直接联系。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引起的集体运动，因为它出现在大块组织和细菌生物膜中。利用计算机模拟和数学建模，研究了集体运动细胞的形态和发育和肿瘤侵袭过程中的明确情景。整个项目的数学模型和实验数据将进行比较和评估。这些结果对于理解机械扰动如何触发伤口愈合反应、肿瘤细胞如何侵入内聚组织以及细胞力学和动力学特性如何决定组织的形态发生具有重要意义。关于对抗细菌感染的药理学试剂的局限性，这个项目的结果可能有助于发明新的机械方法来去除或破坏关键环境中的生物膜。

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.