Phase transitions from a static to a moving phase are observed in a variety of physical systems and are thought to play a key role in cellular assemblies such as healthy and cancerous tissue. Caterina La Porta and Stefano Zapperi discuss how a suitable identification of the control and order parameters can shed light on the nature of phase transitions in cell migration.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Grosse-Wilde, A. et al. Stemness of the hybrid epithelial/mesenchymal state in breast cancer and its association with poor survival. PLoS ONE 10, e0126522 (2015).
Park, J.-A. et al. Unjamming and cell shape in the asthmatic airway epithelium. Nat. Mater. 14, 1040–1048 (2015).
La Porta, C. A. & Zapperi, S. Cell Migrations: Causes and Functions (Springer, 2019).
Liu, A. J. & Nagel, S. R. Jamming is not just cool any more. Nature 396, 21–22 (1998).
Garcia, S. et al. Physics of active jamming during collective cellular motion in a monolayer. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 15314–15319 (2015).
Bi, D., Yang, X., Marchetti, M. C. & Manning, M. L. Motility-driven glass and jamming transitions in biological tissues. Phys. Rev. X 6, 021011 (2016).
Saw, T. B. et al. Topological defects in epithelia govern cell death and extrusion. Nature 544, 212–216 (2017).
Ilina, O. et al. Cell–cell adhesion and 3D matrix confinement determine jamming transitions in breast cancer invasion. Nat. Cell Biol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-020-0552-6 (2020).
Font-Clos, F., Zapperi, S. & La Porta, C. A. M. Topography of epithelial–mesenchymal plasticity. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, 5902–5907 (2018).
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich and the Internationales Begegnungszentrum München, where this work was completed, for hospitality. S.Z. also acknowledges support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through the Humboldt Research Award and thanks Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg for hospitality.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
La Porta, C.A.M., Zapperi, S. Phase transitions in cell migration. Nat Rev Phys 2, 516–517 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-020-0213-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-020-0213-5
- Springer Nature Limited
This article is cited by
-
Adherens junctions as molecular regulators of emergent tissue mechanics
Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology (2024)
-
In primary airway epithelial cells, the unjamming transition is distinct from the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition
Nature Communications (2020)