Random-walk simulation of cell migration and proliferation

Cell migration and proliferation has been modelled in several works of the literature as a process similar to diffusion. However, diffusion models to simulate the proliferation and migration of cells tend to create a homogeneous distribution in the cell density, but this result is not real. Diffusion is not the mechanism of cell dispersal: cells disperse by crawling or proliferation, or are transported in a moving fluid. The use of stochastic models or other (cellular automata, models particles, etc...) can modify this limitation. Therefore, this paper presents a stochastic model (random-walk) to simulate the proliferation and migration of cells. Both processes are considered as completely stochastic as discrete. The model developed aims to predict the behavior of in vitro cell cultures performed with adult muscle satellite cells. Non homogeneous distribution of cells has been observed inside the culture well. Using previous stochastic model we have been able to predict the non homogeneous cell distribution and accurate quantitative results have been computed. In a future, the model will allow us to incorporate other aspects such as cell differentiation, incorporate several cell populations simultaneously, etc