Department of Systems Immunology and Braunschweig Integrated Centre of Systems Biology, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Rebenring 56, 38106, Braunschweig, Germany.
Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing, Technische Univesität Dresden, Nöthnitzer Straße 46, 01062, Dresden, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2020 Dec 22;10(1):22371. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-79119-y.
Collective migration is commonly observed in groups of migrating cells, in the form of swarms or aggregates. Mechanistic models have proven very useful in understanding collective cell migration. Such models, either explicitly consider the forces involved in the interaction and movement of individuals or phenomenologically define rules which mimic the observed behavior of cells. However, mechanisms leading to collective migration are varied and specific to the type of cells involved. Additionally, the precise and complete dynamics of many important chemomechanical factors influencing cell movement, from signalling pathways to substrate sensing, are typically either too complex or largely unknown. The question is how to make quantitative/qualitative predictions of collective behavior without exact mechanistic knowledge. Here we propose the least microenvironmental uncertainty principle (LEUP) that may serve as a generative model of collective migration without precise incorporation of full mechanistic details. Using statistical physics tools, we show that the famous Vicsek model is a special case of LEUP. Finally, to test the biological applicability of our theory, we apply LEUP to construct a model of the collective behavior of spherical Serratia marcescens bacteria, where the underlying migration mechanisms remain elusive.
群体迁移在迁移细胞的群体中很常见，表现为群集或聚集。机械模型在理解群体细胞迁移方面非常有用。这些模型要么明确考虑了个体相互作用和运动所涉及的力，要么从经验上定义了模仿细胞观察到的行为的规则。然而，导致群体迁移的机制是多种多样的，并且特定于所涉及的细胞类型。此外，许多重要的化学机械因素影响细胞运动的精确和完整动力学，从信号通路到基质感应，通常过于复杂或大部分未知。问题是如何在没有精确机械知识的情况下对群体行为进行定量/定性预测。在这里，我们提出最小环境不确定性原理（LEUP），它可以作为没有精确包含完整机械细节的群体迁移的生成模型。我们使用统计物理工具表明，著名的 Vicsek 模型是 LEUP 的一个特例。最后，为了测试我们理论的生物学适用性，我们应用 LEUP 来构建球形粘质沙雷氏菌的群体行为模型，其中潜在的迁移机制仍不清楚。
