Numerical investigation of the role of intercellular interactions on collective epithelial cell migration

During collective cell migration, the intercellular forces will significantly affect the collective migratory behaviors. However, the measurement of mechanical stresses exerted at cell–cell junctions is very challenging. A recent experimental observation indicated that the intercellular adhesion sites within a migrating monolayer are subjected to both normal stress exerted perpendicular to cell–cell junction surface and shear stress exerted tangent to cell–cell junction surface. In this study, an interfacial interaction model was proposed to model the intercellular interactions for the first time. The intercellular interaction model-based study of collective epithelial migration revealed that the direction of cell migration velocity has better alignment with the orientation of local principal stress at higher maximum shear stress locations in an epithelial monolayer sheet. Parametric study of the effects of adhesion strength indicated that normal adhesion strength at the cell–cell junction surface has dominated effect on local alignment between the direction of cell velocity vector and the principal stress orientation, while the shear adhesion strength has little effect, which provides compelling evidence to help explain the force transmission via cell–cell junctions between adjacent cells in collective cell motion and provides new insights into “adhesive belt” effects at cell–cell junction.