Classifying the expansion kinetics and critical surface dynamics of growing cell populations.

Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany.

We systematically study the growth kinetics and the critical surface dynamics of cell monolayers by a class of computationally efficient cellular automaton models avoiding lattice artifacts. Our numerically derived front velocity relationship indicates the limitations of the Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrovskii-Piskounov equation for tumor growth simulations. The critical surface dynamics corresponds to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class, which disagrees with the interpretation by Bru et al. of their experimental observations as generic molecular-beam-epitaxy-like growth, questioning their conjecture that a successful therapy should lead away from molecular beam epitaxy.

PMID: 18233492 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]