RESEARCH ARTICLE Melanoma Cell Colony Expansion Parameters Revealed by Approximate Bayesian Computation

In vitro studies and mathematical models are now being widely used to study the underlying mechanisms driving the expansion of cell colonies. This can improve our understanding of cancer formation and progression. Although much progress has been made in terms of developing and analysing mathematical models, far less progress has been made in terms of understanding how to estimate model parameters using experimental in vitro image-based data. To address this issue, a new approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) algo-rithm is proposed to estimate key parameters governing the expansion of melanoma cell (MM127) colonies, including cell diffusivity, D, cell proliferation rate, λ, and cell-to-cell adhe-sion, q, in two experimental scenarios, namely with and without a chemical treatment to suppress cell proliferation. Even when little prior biological knowledge about the parameters is assumed, all parameters are precisely inferred with a small posterior coefficient of varia-tion, approximately 2–12%. The ABC analyses reveal that the posterior distributions of D and q depend on the experimental elapsed time, whereas the posterior distribution of λ does not. The posterior mean values of D and q are in the ranges 226–268 µm2h−1, 311