• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.10-17
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• 2020

The curvature of wound boundaries has been identified as a key modulator that determines a type of force responsible for cell migration. While several studies report how certain curvatures of the boundary correlate with the rate at which the wound closes, it remains unclear how these curvatures are spatiotemporally formed to regulate the healing process. We investigated the dynamic changes in the boundary curvatures by visualizing cell migration patterns. Locally, cells at the convex boundary continuously move forward with transmitting kinetic responses behind to the cells away from the boundary, and cells at the concave boundary exhibit dramatic contracting motion, like a purse-string, when they accumulate enough negative curvatures to gain the thrust toward the void. Globally, the dynamics of boundary geometries are controlled by the diffusive flow of cells driven by the density gradient between the wound area and the cell layer.