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Updated: Feb 21, 2026

Traction Microscopy Integrated with Microfluidics for Chemotactic Collective Migration
Published on: October 13, 2019
Physical models of collective cell motility: from cell to tissue
Brian A Camley1, Wouter-Jan Rappel1
1Department of Physics, UC San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA.
Abstract:
In this article, we review physics-based models of collective cell motility. We discuss a range of techniques at different scales, ranging from models that represent cells as simple self-propelled particles to phase field models that can represent a cell's shape and dynamics in great detail. We also extensively review the ways in which cells within a tissue choose their direction, the statistics of cell motion, and some simple examples of how cell-cell signaling can interact with collective cell motility. This review also covers in more detail selected recent works on collective cell motion of small numbers of cells on micropatterns, in wound healing, and the chemotaxis of clusters of cells.
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