JSAP Spring / Autumn Meeting

During the process of embryonic development, cells organize themselves in a higher order of structures while undergoing cell division and cell fate specification. Such spatio-temporal organization of embryonic cells also occurs after dissociation and culture in vitro. However, the dynamics of cell reengagement have not thoroughly examined. We analyzed the trajectories of individual cells in multi-layers for zebrafish self-organizing cells over 2 hour using confocal microscopy. The mean square displacements (MSD) of these cells are plotted and the scaling exponent is estimated. As a result, we found anomalous scaling exponent changes at 50 min where Δr ~ 25μm, which is close to the cell diameter. We will also discuss the characteristic motion variations versus cell size, neighbors and layers. Our results indicate cell motions are analogous to the solid to fluid transitions known as unjamming.