Computational study of the interplay of adhesion and chemotaxis in the cell seeding of tissue engineering scaffolds with incorporated chemoattractants.

Cell migration is important in embryogenesis, metastasis and wound healing. Often, morphogenesis involves chemotactic cell movement up or down chemical gradients. We have developed a computational model of a cell suspension in the vicinity of a porous scaffold that incorporates a chemoattractant substance. In order to study the interplay of adhesion and chemotaxis on cell seeding , we developed a computational model of the system and simulated its evolution using a Metropolis Monte Carlo algorithm. We varied the chemotactic strengths of the cells in order to identify the optimal conditions for a rapid and uniform seeding.