The circulatory system is one of the first to function during development. The earliest event in the system's development is vasculogenesis, whereby vascular progeniter cells form clusters called blood islands, which later fuse to form capillary networks. There exists a very good in vitro system that mimics this process. When HUVECs (Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells) are cultured on Matrigel, they spontaneously form a capillary network structure. Two theoretical models have been proposed...

In vitro transmesothelial migration assays of ovarian cancer cells, isolated or aggregated in multicellular spheroids, are reproduced deducing suitable Cellular Potts Models (CPM). We show that the simulations are in good agreement with the experimental evidence and that the overall process is regulated by the activity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and by the interplay of the adhesive properties of the cells with the extracellular matrix and...

When invading the tissue, malignant tumour cells (i.e. cancer cells) need to detach from neighbouring cells, degrade the basement membrane, and migrate through the extracellular matrix. These processes require loss of cell-cell adhesion and enhancement of cell-matrix adhesion. In this paper we present a mathematical model of an intracellular pathway for the interactions between a cancer cell and the extracellular matrix. Cancer cells use similar...

Gliomas are highly invasive brain tumors that exhibit high and spatially heterogeneous cell proliferation and motility rates. The interplay of proliferation and migration dynamics plays an important role in the invasion of these malignant tumors. We analyze the regulation of proliferation and migration processes with a lattice-gas cellular automaton (LGCA). We study and characterize the influence of the migration/proliferation dichotomy (also known...