Tip cell overtaking occurs as a side effect of sprouting in computational models of angiogenesis

BACKGROUND: During angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels from existing ones, endothelial cells differentiate into tip and stalk cells, after which one tip cell leads the sprout. More recently, this picture has changed. It has become clear that endothelial cells compete for the tip position during angiogenesis: a phenomenon named tip cell overtaking. The biological function of tip cell overtaking is not yet known. From experimental observations, it is unclear to what extent tip cell overtaking is a side effect of sprouting or to what extent it is regulated through a VEGF-Dll4-Notch signaling network and thus might have a biological function. To address this question, we studied tip cell overtaking in computational models of angiogenic sprouting in absence and in presence of VEGF-Dll4-Notch signaling. RESULTS: We looked for tip cell overtaking in two existing Cellular Potts models of angiogenesis. In these simulation models angiogenic sprouting-like behavior emerges from a small set of plausible cell behaviors. In the first model, cells aggregate through contact-inhibited chemotaxis. In the second model the endothelial cells assume an elongated shape and aggregate through (non-inhibited) chemotaxis. In both these sprouting models the endothelial cells spontaneously migrate forwards and backwards within sprouts, suggesting that tip cell overtaking might occur as a side effect of sprouting. In accordance with other experimental observations, in our simulations the cells’ tendency to occupy the tip position can be regulated when two cell lines with different levels of Vegfr2 expression are contributing to sprouting (mosaic sprouting assay), where cell behavior is regulated by a simple VEGF-Dll4-Notch signaling network. CONCLUSIONS: Our modeling results suggest that tip cell overtaking can occur spontaneously due to the stochastic motion of cells during sprouting. Thus, tip cell overtaking and sprouting dynamics may be interdependent and should be studied and interpreted in combination. VEGF-Dll4-Notch can regulate the ability of cells to occupy the tip cell position in our simulations. We propose that the function of VEGF-Dll4-Notch signaling might not be to regulate which cell ends up at the tip, but to assure that the cell that randomly ends up at the tip position acquires the tip cell phenotype. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12918-015-0230-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.