Micro-Groove Contact Guidance Simulator

Surface Topography

Groove depth 400 nm

Groove pitch 4.0 μm

Cell Population

Motility 1.0×

Cell count 150

Live Readouts

Order parameter S

0.00

Guidance strength A

0.00

Migration anisotropy

1.00

Elapsed time

0.0 h

How it works

Cells on a grooved substrate sense the ridges through focal-adhesion and cytoskeletal reorganisation and progressively turn to travel along them — a phenomenon called contact guidance. Each cell here carries a polarity angle θ measured from the groove direction, evolving under a nematic alignment torque plus rotational noise from its own protrusive activity:

dθ/dt = -A(d,p)·sin(2θ) + √(2·Dr)·ξ(t)
x(t+dt) = x(t) + v·cos(θ)·dt
z(t+dt) = z(t) + v·sin(θ)·dt

The guidance strength A follows a saturating dose-response in groove depth d (nm), consistent with the depth-threshold behaviour reported for fibroblasts on nanogrooved substrates (Loesberg et al., 2007), and falls off as the groove pitch p widens past the size of a spread cell:

A(d,p) = A_max · d^1.5 / (d^1.5 + d50^1.5) · 1/(1 + (p/p0)²)

Groove depth — deeper grooves confine lamellipodial protrusions more strongly, raising A toward its saturation value A_max.
Groove pitch — wider ridge spacing lets a cell spread across several grooves at once, diluting the guidance cue.
Order parameter S = |⟨e^{i2θ}⟩| — the nematic alignment metric averaged over the population; S = 0 is isotropic (random), S = 1 is every cell perfectly parallel to the grooves.
Migration anisotropy — the ratio of mean |cos θ| to mean |sin θ|, i.e. how much more the population moves along the grooves than across them.

Real-world relevance: nanogrooved and microgrooved titanium, PDMS and electrospun-fibre surfaces are used to steer osteoblast, fibroblast and neurite orientation on implants and tissue-engineering scaffolds, improving tissue integration and guided regeneration.

Aligned cell Misaligned cell

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Micro-Groove Contact Guidance: Cell Alignment on Biomaterial Surfaces