The Role of Cell Migration Guidance Cues in Emergent Collective Behavior*

Studying the dynamics of collective systems can provide insight into how the motion of individual active agents can lead to unexpected emergent collective behavior. As tumors cells migrate to form metastases, a particularly lethal stage of cancer, the cells’ collective behavior is disrupted. Although current research largely focuses on individual cells, recent evidence shows that the most dangerous tumor cells retain the ability to move as collective strands or clusters that metastasize together. In this work, we use quantitative image analysis tools and live-cell imaging to investigate how guidance cues influence cells with different tumorigenicity, leading to distinct migration behavior.