Biophysical and Biochemical Mechanisms Underlying Collective Cell Migration in Cancer Metastasis

Multicellular collective migration is an ubiquitous strategy of cells to translocate spatially in diverse tissue environments to accomplish a wide variety of biological phenomena, viz., embryonic development, wound healing, and tumor progression. Diverse cellular functions and behaviors, for instance, cell protrusions, active contractions, cell-cell adhesion, biochemical signaling, remodeling of tissue microenvironment, etc., play their own role concomitantly to have a single concerted consequence of multicellular migration. Thus unveiling the driving principles, both biochemical and biophysical, of the inherently complex process of collective cell migration is an insurmountable task. Mathematical and computational models, in tandem with experimental data, help in shedding some light on it. Here we review different factors influencing collective cell migration in general and then specific to cancer. We present a detailed discussion on different mathematical and computational modeling frameworks—discrete, hybrid, and continuum—which helps in revealing different aspects of multicellular migration. Finally, we discuss the applications of these modeling frameworks specific to cancer.