Random Cell Motion Enhances the Capacity of Cell-Cell Communication

Cells communicate with each other via the transmission and reception of signal molecules. In this paper, we test our hypothesis that random cell motion can enhance cell-cell communication. We first conducted cell-tracking experiments to obtain motility parameters of endothelial cells, and then used the molecular communication framework to obtain the achievable rates at which cells can communicate. Our results show that random cell motion can benefit cell-cell communication when signal molecules that cells use are an order of magnitude less-diffusive than well-known vascular endothelial growth factors.