Moving En Masse

Getting yourself from A to B is easy. Dragging a crowd with you, less so. Mass migration is complicated. Researchers now investigate the mass migration of wound-healing cells in dishes. Interference reflection microscopy was used to measure how far cells lifted off dishes when moving. These images, combined with computation modelling, created maps of the tension across cells' membranes. Cells at the front (leaders) usually showed the highest membrane tension in their mid-sections. Sometimes, cells behind leaders (followers) didn't stick to the dish and served as bridges between leaders and far-away followers, as captured in a confocal microscopy slice through the cells (pictured) – leaders (top) appear to have no cells immediately behind them as these followers have lifted off the dish. Leaders with non-sticky followers behind them had higher membrane tension at their fronts and slowed down. What followers get up to, therefore, affects how leaders react during mass movements.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by Madhura Chakraborty and Baishali Mukherjee, and colleagues, published on the cover of Biology Open
• Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, Mohanpur, Nadia, India
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Biology Open, March 2022