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Created by: Cicely K Macnamara, Robyn Shuttleworth, Vincent Noël, Marco Ruscone
Issue 313: The extracellular matrix (ECM) is a complex assembly of macromolecules, such as collagen fibres, which provide structural support for surrounding cells. In the context of cancer, the interactions between cells and the ECM play a key role in tumour growth and development. Agent-based frameworks, such as PhysiCell, are highly useful to represent the spatial dynamics of tumour evolution. In order to accurately represent the ECM as a network of fibres, we present PhysiMeSS, an addon of PhysiCell, which introduces a new type of agent to describe fibres, and their physical interactions. PhysiMeSS implementation is publicly available here and in the official PhysiCell repository. We hope that this tool will be useful to the mathematical oncology community enabling thorough investigation of tumour-ECM interactions, helping to answer important biological questions surrounding tumour development and cancer metastasis.