A 3-D Deformable Ellipsoidal Cell Model with Cell Adhesion and Signaling

In this chapter a three-dimensional model of ellipsoidal cells is presented and used to study how cell-cell signaling, cell adhesion, chemotaxis and differentiation all work together in a coordinated fashion to give rise to the developed organism. The Dictyostelium discoideum is used as a model system, since it is simple, yet has all the basic cell-cell interactions. Another goal of introducing this model is to achieve visualization of cell movements and signal propagation in 3-D space.