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   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coisb.2021.03.007  

   Almet, Axel A.; Cang, Zixuan; Jin, Suoqin; Nie, Qing (June 2021, Current Opinion in Systems Biology)
2. Learning the dynamics of cell–cell interactions in confined cell migration

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2016602118  

   Brückner, David B.; Arlt, Nicolas; Fink, Alexandra; Ronceray, Pierre; Rädler, Joachim O.; Broedersz, Chase P. (February 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   null (Ed.)

   The migratory dynamics of cells in physiological processes, ranging from wound healing to cancer metastasis, rely on contact-mediated cell–cell interactions. These interactions play a key role in shaping the stochastic trajectories of migrating cells. While data-driven physical formalisms for the stochastic migration dynamics of single cells have been developed, such a framework for the behavioral dynamics of interacting cells still remains elusive. Here, we monitor stochastic cell trajectories in a minimal experimental cell collider: a dumbbell-shaped micropattern on which pairs of cells perform repeated cellular collisions. We observe different characteristic behaviors, including cells reversing, following, and sliding past each other upon collision. Capitalizing on this large experimental dataset of coupled cell trajectories, we infer an interacting stochastic equation of motion that accurately predicts the observed interaction behaviors. Our approach reveals that interacting noncancerous MCF10A cells can be described by repulsion and friction interactions. In contrast, cancerous MDA-MB-231 cells exhibit attraction and antifriction interactions, promoting the predominant relative sliding behavior observed for these cells. Based on these experimentally inferred interactions, we show how this framework may generalize to provide a unifying theoretical description of the diverse cellular interaction behaviors of distinct cell types. 

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3. Metabolism Shapes the Cell

   https://doi.org/10.1128/JB.00039-17  

   Sperber, Anthony M.; Herman, Jennifer K.; Margolin, William (May 2017, Journal of Bacteriology)

   ABSTRACT More than 5 decades of work support the idea that cell envelope synthesis, including the inward growth of cell division, is tightly coordinated with DNA replication and protein synthesis through central metabolism. Remarkably, no unifying model exists to account for how these fundamentally disparate processes are functionally coupled. Recent studies demonstrate that proteins involved in carbohydrate and nitrogen metabolism can moonlight as direct regulators of cell division, coordinate cell division and DNA replication, and even suppress defects in DNA replication. In this minireview, we focus on studies illustrating the intimate link between metabolism and regulation of peptidoglycan (PG) synthesis during growth and division, and we identify the following three recurring themes. (i) Nutrient availability, not growth rate, is the primary determinant of cell size. (ii) The degree of gluconeogenic flux is likely to have a profound impact on the metabolites available for cell envelope synthesis, so growth medium selection is a critical consideration when designing and interpreting experiments related to morphogenesis. (iii) Perturbations in pathways relying on commonly shared and limiting metabolites, like undecaprenyl phosphate (Und-P), can lead to pleotropic phenotypes in unrelated pathways. 

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4. Cell-type-specific resolution epigenetics without the need for cell sorting or single-cell biology

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   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.semcancer.2023.07.001  

   Wang, Xinyi; Almet, Axel A.; Nie, Qing (October 2023, Seminars in cancer biology)