Phase separation and migration in 2D cell co-cultures

During morphogenesis, whether in the context of the formation of embryos or of tumors, different types of cells live in close proximity. These cells often have different physical properties. Breast epithelial cells, for example, are generally more adhesive than their cancerous counterparts. This is due to the downregulation of the protein E-cadherin, which facilitates cell-cell adhesion, in cancer cells. Cancer cells are also often more deformable than non-cancerous cells of the same tissue type. We investigate how these differences impact the organization and migration within a binary cell population. To address this, we model and simulate this system as a two-dimensional binary mixture of soft, active particles with different mechanical and adhesive properties. We characterize the phase separation in the system by monitoring the organization and growth of cell clusters with time, and the dynamics in terms of tagged cell trajectories and speeds, mean squared displacements, and non-affine motion. Our results may provide interesting insights into tumor organization, and metastasis.