Dirk Drasdo
IMISE, University of Leipzig, Germany
Drasdo@imise.uni-leipzig.de
Starting from a (simple) single cell-based cellular automaton approach which is shown to describe adequately experimental data from multicellular tumor spheroids an single cell-based off-lattice model is developed that does not show any large-scale symmetries from an underlying lattice. This approach can easily be extended to describe (i) the growth of non-vascular tumor spheroids, (ii) blastula formation and gastrulation in sea urchin and (iii) the buckling of one layered tissues as observed (a) during the fission of intestinal crypts (pear-shaped pockets in the intestinal wall responsible for maintenence of the intestinal epithelium) after x-ray radiation or (b) after administration of keratinocyte growth factor in the oral mucosa (skin of the mouth). Depending on the particular system studied cells are considered similar to Brownian particles with elastic interactions between them and the ability to divide and change their material or kinetic parameters by differentiation. >From these systems simple generic properties and effects can be extracted and analyzed separately by simple analytical models that allow to link the single-particle picture with a continuum description.