Collective cell migration across scales: A systems perspective

Collective cell migration is a key tissue shaping process fundamental to development, wound healing and cancer invasion. The sensing, integration, transduction and propagation of guidance signals and the resulting generation of collective cell responses during collective cell migration can occur at several different length scales from molecular to cellular to supracellular. Furthermore, we have become aware that the cell-environment relationship during migration is bi-directional, where cells not only receive guidance cues from the environment, but also dynamically remodel the environment via their migratory behaviours. Such complex interplay of internal (i.e. intracellular) and external (i.e. cell-cell and cell-environment) interactions makes predicting the emergent output behaviours of cell groups challenging. Here, we propose a framework that combines interdisciplinary experimental and theoretical approaches to bridge the gap between molecular-level mechanisms and tissue-level phenomena during collective cell migration in complex environments. We will review recent works on both in vitro and in vivo migratory models that successfully employ some of these approaches to identify general principles explaining the input-output relationships of robustly tuneable migratory systems. By integrating in vitro with in vivo observations, we will develop more comprehensive models of how collective cell migration is orchestrated in living organisms, which will also pave the way for more effective applications in tissue engineering and disease therapeutics in the future.