Collective migration and patterning during early development of zebrafish posterior lateral line

The morphogenesis of zebrafish posterior lateral line (PLL) is a good predictive model largely used in biology to study cell coordinated reorganization and collective migration regulating pathologies and human embryonic processes. PLL development involves the formation of a placode formed by epithelial cells with mesenchymal characteristics which migrates within the animal myoseptum while cyclically assembling and depositing rosette-like clusters (progenitors of neuromast structures). The overall process mainly relies on the activity of specific diffusive chemicals, which trigger collective directional migration and patterning. Cell proliferation and cascade of phenotypic transitions play a fundamental role as well. The investigation on the mechanisms regulating such a complex morphogenesis has become a research topic, in the last decades, also for the mathematical community. In this respect, we present a multiscale hybrid model integrating a discrete approach for the cellular level and a continuous description for the molecular scale. The resulting numerical simulations are then able to reproduce both the evolution of wild-type (i.e. normal) embryos and the pathological behaviour resulting form experimental manipulations involving laser ablation. A qualitative analysis of the dependence of these model outcomes from cell-cell mutual interactions, cell chemical sensitivity and internalization rates is included. The aim is first to validate the model, as well as the estimated parameter values, and then to predict what happens in situations not tested yet experimentally. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Multi-scale analysis and modelling of collective migration in biological systems'.