Tilted mammalian cell colony propagation dynamics on patterned substrates

Abstract

The flux of cells at the cell colony border region is expected to be controlled by ridge-patterned substrates, and the cell colony displacement velocity influenced by the orientation of the ridges with respect to the colony contour. In this work patterns with regularly separated ridges are employed to fabricate tilted initially quasi-linear colony fronts with different tilt angles s. For ridges with periods in the 3.3 – 5.2 µm range, the morphological characteristics of the colony pattern, individual cell displacement velocities and the flux of cells at the cell colony border region depend on s. The increase in the average cell colony front displacement velocity obtained by varying the slope of the tilted front by changing s in the range 0 < s < 65˚ shows a behaviour consistent with the standard KPZ equation, pointing to the key role of the non-linear term in the spreading of cell colonies. Furthermore, the coefficients associated with the KPZ equation are estimated from experimental data and used in the numerical integration of the equation for reproducing experimental results. This work can contribute the mechanistic basis to the design of strategies to enhance or prevent cell colonization.