In vitro "wound" healing: Experimentally based phenomenological modeling

We discuss the applicability of some elementary models for the closure of in vitro "wounds" that are inflicted in monolayer cell cultures (also termed "wound healing assays"). These models can be applied to the simulation of healing of superficial wounds as long as they only concern the epidermis. We test several models that are based on a curvature driven displacement, a simple partial differential equation based model in which the actual cellular density is tracked. Finally, a semi-stochastic cellular based model is evaluated. We discuss several models to simulate the closure of an in vitro wound on a substrate. The formalisms involve a cell-colony model with individual cells, an upscaled model with a cell density, and a phenomenological model where the "wound" edge is tracked by determination of the curvature. The computations give the time-evolution of the "wound" area.