概要：Cells migrating in sheets or large cohorts tend to behave very differently from cells migrating individually, especially under geometrical or physical constraints. Such distinctive behavior of cells migrating in a collective manner underlies several important biological processes such as wound closure, maintenance of intestinal epithelium, developmental processes and even cancer metastasis. As such, they can also provide important insights towards better tissue repair and regenerative medicine. Here, we characterized the kinematic behavior of epithelial cell cohorts migrating under well defined geometrical constraints and physical confinements such as on a 2D narrow strips and within 3D microtubes. We also studied collective cell migration over areas without cell adherent proteins to examine the formation of epithelial bridges so as to better wound closure mechanisms. Finally, we extended our studies to examine the different modes of collective cell migration of both malignant and highly invasive breast cancer cells.

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