Simulation of the differential adhesion driven rearrangement of biological cells

Abstract

We show that differential adhesion with fluctuations is sufficient to explain a wide variety of cell re- arrangement, by using the extended large-Q Potts model with differential adhesivity to simulate different biological phenomena. Different values of relative surface energies correspond to different biological cases, including complete and partial cell sorting, checkerboard, position reversal, and dispersal. We examine the convergence and temperature dependence of the simulation and distinguish spontaneous, neutral, and activated processes by performing simulations at different temperatures. We discuss the biological and physical implications of our quantitative results.