Control of cell colony growth by contact inhibition

Abstract: We investigate the dynamics of a colony of crawling, proliferating cells with a minimal, mechanical cell model. The cells consist of two disks, modelling the cell body and a pseudopod, connected by a finite extensible spring. The cells exhibit locomotion due to a linear coupling of the motility force to the cell extension. With a simple mechanism for contact inhibition of proliferation, we find the typical regimes of colony growth, with exponential growth at short times turning into sub-exponential growth at long times. In the latter regime the colony boundary moves outwards with a constant speed. We identify simple scaling relations for both regimes and the crossover between them. We find that the shape of the cells (the ratio between the two disk's radii) determines the efficiency with which cells orient themselves away from the colony. The better the cells are at aligning themselves away from the colony, the faster the colony expands.