Organizing collective cell migration through guidance by followers

Area of Science:

• Cell biology
• Developmental biology
• Biophysics

Background:

• Collective cell migration is essential for morphogenesis, wound healing, and cancer metastasis.
• While epithelial cells typically migrate collectively, mesenchymal cells can migrate individually or collectively.
• Coordination and guidance between cells and tissues are critical for these processes.

Approach:

• This article reviews "contact regulation of locomotion" behaviors that organize mesenchymal collective cell migration.
• It highlights the "guidance by followers" mechanism, where cells are oriented by their immediate followers.
• The zebrafish gastrulating embryo serves as a model to illustrate this phenomenon during embryonic axis elongation.

Key Points:

• "Guidance by followers" explains how the polster tissue collectively migrates and is guided by the posterior axial mesoderm.
• This mechanism ensures long-range coordination of cell movements and enhances developmental robustness.
• Collective migration of loosely organized cell populations is organized by various "contact regulation of locomotion" behaviors.

Conclusions:

• "Guidance by followers" is a key mechanism for organizing collective cell migration in mesenchymal populations.
• This process contributes to developmental robustness and coordinated tissue movement.
• Understanding these contact-dependent behaviors is vital for studying development, regeneration, and disease progression.