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Description
T cells are among the most motile immune cells in the body, and their migration into and within tissues is key to their function. Remarkably, T cells can maintain their motility even in highly crowded environments like the densely packed T cell areas of lymphoid organs, but how they do so remains incompletely understood. In this work\cite{hfsp}, we use microfluidic devices and Cellular Potts Models\cite{act}\cite{ucsp} to study T cells from a crowd dynamics perspective in vitro and in silico, focusing on a hallmark scenario that has proven instrumental in characterizing other crowded systems such as pedestrians and ants: single-lane traffic. Unexpectedly, T cells in narrow, straight microchannels synchronize their speeds and form stable, motile trains. We show that this behavior can be explained by a preference of T cells to maintain contact with each other after collisions, and an ability of faster T cells to “push” slower ones. We demonstrate that this behavior does not extend to all immune cells; neutrophils in the same settings slow down with increasing cell density. Cooperative motion may benefit T cell motility in difficult and crowded tissue environments, ultimately preventing jams that impair motion in other crowded systems.
Bibliography
@article{act,
title = {Crawling and {Gliding}: {A} {Computational} {Model} for {Shape}-{Driven} {Cell} {Migration}},
volume = {11},
issn = {1553-7358},
shorttitle = {Crawling and {Gliding}},
url = {https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004280},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004280},
abstract = {Cell migration is a complex process involving many intracellular and extracellular factors, with different cell types adopting sometimes strikingly different morphologies. Modeling realistically behaving cells in tissues is computationally challenging because it implies dealing with multiple levels of complexity. We extend the Cellular Potts Model with an actin-inspired feedback mechanism that allows small stochastic cell rufflings to expand to cell protrusions. This simple phenomenological model produces realistically crawling and deforming amoeboid cells, and gliding half-moon shaped keratocyte-like cells. Both cell types can migrate randomly or follow directional cues. They can squeeze in between other cells in densely populated environments or migrate collectively. The model is computationally light, which allows the study of large, dense and heterogeneous tissues containing cells with realistic shapes and migratory properties.},
language = {en},
number = {10},
urldate = {2026-03-16},
journal = {PLOS Computational Biology},
author = {Niculescu, Ioana and Textor, Johannes and Boer, Rob J. de},
month = oct,
year = {2015},
keywords = {Cell migration, Chemotaxis, Chemokines, T cells, Simulation and modeling, Cancer cell migration, Actins, Cell membranes},
pages = {e1004280},
}
@misc{hfsp,
title = {Cooperative motility emerges in crowds of {T} cells but not neutrophils},
copyright = {© 2024, Posted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. This pre-print is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution 4.0 International), CC BY 4.0, as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.21.618803v1},
doi = {10.1101/2024.10.21.618803},
abstract = {T cells are among the most motile immune cells in the body, and their migration into and within tissues is key to their function. Remarkably, T cells can maintain their motility even in highly crowded environments like the densely packed T cell areas of lymphoid organs, but how they do so remains incompletely understood. Here, we use microfluidic devices and in silico models to study T cells from a crowd dynamics perspective, focusing on a hallmark scenario that has proven instrumental in characterizing other crowded systems such as pedestrians and ants: single-lane traffic. Unexpectedly, T cells in narrow, straight microchannels synchronize their speeds and form stable, motile trains. We show that this behavior can be explained by a preference of T cells to maintain contact with each other after collisions, and an ability of faster T cells to “push” slower ones. We demonstrate that this behavior does not extend to all immune cells; neutrophils in the same settings slow down with increasing cell density. Cooperative motion may benefit T cell motility in difficult and crowded tissue environments, ultimately preventing jams that impair motion in other crowded systems.},
language = {en},
urldate = {2026-03-16},
publisher = {bioRxiv},
author = {Wortel, Inge MN and Postat, Jérémy and Mihaylova, Mihaela and Merino, Mauricio and Bhagrath, Aanya and Harris, Maryl and Wouters, Lin and Wiebke, Lucas and Parisi, Daniel R. and Mandl, Judith N. and Textor, Johannes},
month = oct,
year = {2024},
}
@article{ucsp,
title = {Local actin dynamics couple speed and persistence in a cellular {Potts} model of cell migration},
volume = {120},
issn = {00063495},
url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0006349521004240},
doi = {10.1016/j.bpj.2021.04.036},
language = {en},
number = {13},
urldate = {2026-03-16},
journal = {Biophysical Journal},
author = {Wortel, Inge M.N. and Niculescu, Ioana and Kolijn, P. Martijn and Gov, Nir S. and De Boer, Rob J. and Textor, Johannes},
month = jul,
year = {2021},
pages = {2609--2622},
}
