Collective migration of human osteoblasts in direct current electric field

Under both physiological (development, regeneration) and pathological conditions (cancer metastasis), cells migrate while sensing environmental cues in the form of physical, chemical or electrical gradients. Although it is known that osteoblasts respond to exogenous electric fields, the underlying mechanism of electrotactic collective movement of human osteoblasts is unclear. Theoretical approaches to study electrotactic cell migration until now mainly used reaction-diffusion models, and did not consider the affect of electric field on single-cell motility, or incorporate spatially dependent cell-to-cell interactions. Here, we present a computational model that takes into account cell interactions and describes cell migration in direct current electric field. We compare this model with in vitro experiments, in which human primary osteoblasts are exposed to direct current electric field of varying field strength. Our results show that cell-cell interactions and fluctuations in the migration direction together leads to anode-directed collective migration of osteoblasts.