Fig. 3: Active foam simulation of spheroid fusion.
A Model overview, showing cells with surface tension γ at the cell-medium interface, viscosity η and active pressure pa, interacting with adhesive tension w and cell-cell friction ξ. B Cross-sections of simulated spheroids at cell-cell tension α = [0.25, 0.50, 0.75], together with the GSI obtained as in the experiments (Fig. 2D). C Temporal snapshots of simulated fusion for α = 0.25, 0.5 and 0.75 at par/2γ = 0.45. D Temporal evolution of the average simulated fusion angle at fixed active pressure par/2γ = 0.34 and varying α, together with fitted dynamics using Eq. (1). E Temporal evolution of the average simulated fusion angle at fixed α = 0.56 and varying pa, together with fitted dynamics. F Equilibrium fusion angle θeq for varying α and pa. G Fusion time-scale τf for varying α and pa. Vertical and horizontal dashed lines in (F) and (G) indicate the parameter range for resp. panels (D) and (E). Hatched data points in (F, G) show simulations that failed to converge at high motility and low α due to highly negative surface tension at the cell front (par/2γ ≫ α). All values shown in (D–G) correspond to the average over 10 random repeats.
