This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Epithelial cells are the tiny shields that line and protect our bodies. In a developing embryo, epithelial cells grow, divide and move into positions to form the outer layers of our skin and the surfaces of our organs and blood vessels.
When we scrape our skin, suffer an internal tear or undergo surgery, epithelial cells migrate to the site of injury to heal a wound. And when epithelial cells go haywire, they can turn malignant and spread through the body as cancer. MIT engineers have discovered that as they migrate, epithelial cells can synchronize and collectively pulse.
In a study appearing today in the journal Newton, the researchers report observing groups of epithelial cells repeatedly moving in, then out, like a circle of dancers coming together and pulling apart. The team measured this collective rhythmic pulsing in different types of epithelial cells, including healthy cells, cells from benign tumors and cancerous cells. Surprisingly, they discovered that malignant epithelial cells were more persistent in their synchronization, pulsing together twice as long as healthy cells.
It's unclear why the cells synchronize in this way, but the researchers suspect that this cellular dance could serve as a clinical signal. "More aggressive cancer cells tend to have a steadier and more persistent rhythm than healthy cells," says study author Ming Guo, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. "We think this coordination could serve as an early warning sign of how likely a tumor is to spread.
The same coordinated waves may help shape embryos during development and close wounds upon injury." The study includes first author and former MIT graduate student Wenhui Tang SM '20, PhD '24; Mehrana Nejad and L. Mahadevan of Harvard University; and Adrian Pegoraro of the Metrology Research Centre of the National Research Council Canada. When studying how epithelial cells organize and develop into whole organs and tissues, scientists have focused mainly on how the cells coordinate in space.
Where cells move, where they are in relation to the growing tissue and where they end up are questions of spatial coordination that scientists, including Guo, have investigated. How the movement of cells relates over time is less well understood. Guo's group at MIT studies cell interactions to identify patterns related to healthy versus diseased states.
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